Taiwan's IC testing houses Ardentec, King Yuan Electronics (KYEC) and Sigurd Microelectronics are expected to see their production lines run at high capacity in the third quarter of 2020 thanks mainly to a surge in orders for 5G applications, according to industry sources.
Chip testing demand for 5G infrastructure, handset, networking, RF, and Wi-Fi applications has stayed strong, making the testing houses busy fulfilling shipments to MediaTek, leading US chipmakers, and even Huawei/HiSilicon, the sources said.
Fresh US sanctions on Huawei/HiSilcon are not expected to impact backend partners until the fourth quarter, and MediaTek reportedly will strengthen 5G chip supply to the Chinese vendor, the sources said, adding that Sigurd has recently increased its capex on testing equipment apparently in line with the MediaTek move.
Sigurd's June revenues rose 21.6% on year to NT$975 million (US32.5 million) mainly on strong shipments for 5G networking and power management applications driven by accelerated 5G infrastructure construction and growing stay-at-home economy.
King Yuan's second-quarter revenues expanded 10% on quarter and 25% on year to a record high of NT$7.66 billion thanks partly to stepping up testing 5G base station chipsets for Huawei/HiSilicon, the sources said. The firm's revenues for the first half of the year soared 29.15% on year to NT$14.66 billion.
Ardentec's second-quarter revenues expanded 9.39% sequentially and 14.82% annually to NT$2.274 billion, and revenues for the first six months of the year increased 15.97% on year to NT$4.353 billion.
Taiwan IC testing lines see high capacity utilization
Photo: Michael Lee, Digitimes, July 2020
Article translated by Willis Ke
