Taiwan's IC inspection and certification labs including Sporton International, Audix and BTL continue to enjoy strong demand for Wi-Fi and other network chips, with order visibility extended to the first quarter of 2023, according to industry sources.
Despite terminal consumer electronics markets still under pressure of inventory correction, the trend of Wi-Fi 6 standard being incorporated into midrange and high-end notebooks and desktops has not cooled down, providing stable business momentum for Sporton, Audix and BTL that focus more on networking communication chips and devices, the sources said.
Brand vendors HP, Dell and Lenovo as well as their ODMs have all teamed up with Wi-Fi SoC designers MediaTek, Qualcomm and Realtek Semiconductor to develop new PCs featuring Wi-Fi 6/6E SoCs, the sources noted, adding that Wi-Fi 6 will remain mainstream standard for midrange and high-ernd PCs, and Wi-Fi 6/E is currently adopted in some top-tier models.
The inspection labs have seen clear order visibility for Wi-Fi 6 chips and devices through the first quarter of 2023, and their orders for other chip segments are also well secured for the rest of 2022, the sources indicated.
As Qualcomm, Intel and MediaTek are all aggressively developing Wi-Fi 7 core chips, the sources said, the labs will likely start taking orders from notebook and desktop system makers in the fourth quarter of 2023 for inspecting new devices fitted with Wi-Fi 7 solutions.
The labs reported impressive revenue gains in the first eight months of the year. For instance, Sporton's August revenues rose 4.8% sequentially to NT$440 million (US$14.66 million) and its January-August sales advanced 20.8% on year reaching NT$3.379 billion.
Other inspection labs dedicated more to IC materials, such as Integrated Service Technology (iST), Materials Analysis Technology (MA-tek) and Material Science Service (MSSCorps), have also seen strong demand for material analysis (MA), reliability analysis (RA) and failure analysis (FA) services catering to HPC, AI and 5G chips manufactured with advanced processes, the sources said.
Article translated by Willis Ke
