Amkor is one of the world’s leading providers of outsourced semiconductor
packaging and test services. Amkor pioneered the outsourcing of semiconductor
packaging and test services through a predecessor corporation in 1968, and over
the years we have built a leading position by:
Designing and developing innovative packaging and test technologies;
Offering a broad portfolio of cost-effective solutions and services;
Focusing on strategic end markets that offer solid growth potential;
Cultivating long-standing relationships with our customers, which include many
of the world’s leading semiconductor companies;
Collaborating with customers, original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”)
and equipment and material suppliers;
Developing a competitive cost structure with disciplined capital investment;
Building expertise in high-volume manufacturing processes and developing a reputation
for high quality and solid execution and
Providing a geographically diverse operating base, with research and development,
engineering support and production capabilities at various facilities in China,
Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Portugal and Taiwan.
Our packaging and test services are designed to meet application and chip specific
requirements including the required type of interconnect technology; size; thickness
and electrical, mechanical and thermal performance. We are able to provide turnkey
packaging and test services including semiconductor wafer bump, wafer probe,
wafer back-grind, package design, packaging, system-level and final test and
drop shipment services. Our customers use us for one or more of these services.
We provide our services to integrated device manufacturers (“IDMs”),
“fabless” semiconductor companies and contract foundries. IDMs generally
design, manufacture, package and test semiconductors in their own facilities.
However, the availability of technologically advanced outsourced manufacturing
services has encouraged IDMs to outsource a portion of their manufacturing.
Fabless semiconductor companies do not have factories and focus exclusively
on the semiconductor design process and outsource virtually every step of the
manufacturing process. Fabless semiconductor companies utilize contract foundries
to manufacture their semiconductors in wafer form, and companies such as Amkor
for their packaging and test needs. Some companies will engage a contract foundry
to manage the complete semiconductor manufacturing process, and in turn, the
contract foundry will outsource some of its packaging and test needs.
Our IDM customers include: Intel Corporation; Renesas Electronics Corporation;
STMicroelectronics N.V.; Texas Instruments Incorporated and Toshiba Corporation.
Our fabless customers include: Broadcom Limited, Qualcomm Incorporated and Socionext
Inc. Our contract foundry customers include: GlobalFoundries Inc. and Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited.
Semiconductor companies outsource their packaging and test needs to service
providers such as Amkor for the following reasons:
Packaging and test service providers have developed expertise in advanced technologies.
The increasing demands for miniaturization, greater functionality, lower power
consumption and improved thermal and electrical performance are driving the
continuous development of semiconductor packaging and test technologies that
are more sophisticated, complex and customized. This trend has led many semiconductor
companies and OEMs to view packaging and test as enabling technologies requiring
the kind of leading-edge expertise for technological innovation found in the
leading outsourced assembly and test companies. At the same time, these companies
are often looking to reduce the internal manufacturing and research and development
costs in packaging and test. As a result, many of these companies are increasingly
relying on packaging and test service providers as key sources for new package
designs and advanced interconnect technologies.
Packaging and test service providers offer a cost effective solution in a highly
cyclical, capital intensive industry.
The semiconductor industry is cyclical by nature and impacted by broad economic
factors, such as changes in worldwide gross domestic product and consumer spending.
Semiconductor packaging and test are complex processes requiring substantial
investment in specialized equipment, factories and human resources. As a result
of this cyclicality and the large investments required, manufacturing facilities
must operate at consistently high levels of utilization to be cost effective.
Shorter product life cycles, coupled with the need to update or replace packaging
and test equipment to accommodate new package types, make it more difficult
for integrated semiconductor companies to maintain cost effective utilization
of their packaging and test assets throughout semiconductor industry cycles.
Packaging and test service providers, on the other hand, can typically use their
assets to support a broad range of customers, potentially generating more efficient
use of their production assets and a more cost effective solution.
Packaging and test service providers can facilitate a more efficient supply
chain and help shorten time-to-market for new products.
We believe that semiconductor companies, together with their customers, are
seeking to shorten the time-to-market for their new products, and that having
an effective supply chain is a critical factor in facilitating timely and successful
product introductions. Packaging and test service providers have the resources
and expertise to timely develop their capabilities and implement new packaging
technology in volume. For this reason, semiconductor companies and OEMs are
leveraging the capabilities of packaging and test service providers to deliver
their new products to market more quickly.
High quality packaging and test service providers enable semiconductor manufacturers
to focus their resources on semiconductor design and wafer fabrication.
As semiconductor process technology migrates to larger wafers and smaller feature
sizes, the cost of building a state-of-the-art wafer fabrication factory has
risen significantly and can now be several billions of dollars. The high cost
of investing in next generation silicon technology and equipment is causing
many semiconductor companies to adopt or maintain a “fabless” or
“fab-lite” strategy to reduce or eliminate their investment in wafer
fabrication and associated packaging and test operations. As a result, these
companies are increasing their reliance on outsourced providers of semiconductor
manufacturing services, including packaging and test.
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