Demand for high-end IC manufacturing materials remains robust with clear order visibility stretching into the third quarter of 2020, bolstered by growing adoption of advanced fabrication and packaging processes for 5G base station, AI, and server chips solutions and stoking revenue increases at distributors.
Dedicated IC materials distributor Wah Lee Industrial said demand from major foundry and backend clients for advanced materials including process chemicals and specialty gases has picked up remarkably to support advanced processes for diverse HPC chipsets. The company has also benefited from increasing demand for high-frequency substrate materials and PCB-use CCL materials for high-end data server applications.
All this sent the firm's March 2020 revenues hitting a new historical high of NT$4.848 billion (US$161.19 million) for the same month, surging 50% sequentially and 9.1% on year, according to company tallies.
Topco Scientific, a major distributor of silicon wafer and photoresist, also saw its March revenues reach a record high of NT$3.18 billion, up 13% on month and 22% on year. Its first-quarter 2020 revenues spiked 23.8% from a year earlier to NT$8.79 billion, the second-highest quarterly level.
The company attributed the revenue growth to major clients in Taiwan and China advancing stocking inventory of photoresist, quartz and electronics materials to secure stable HPC chips shipments for 5G base stations, datacenters and IIoT devices.
Niching Industrial's March revenues rose 8% on month and 24% on year to a 26-month high of NT$79.84 million, and its first-quarter revenues expanded 4% sequentially and 17% on year to a 6-quarter high of NT$215 million. Its first-quarter shipments for packaging, memory and driver IC segments all registered double-digit on-year increases.
Article translated by Willis Ke
