SEMES to Make More than $854 million in Annual Sales for Two Years in a Row

SEMES, which is South Korea’s top semiconductor display equipment manufacturer, is about to make more than $854 million(1 trillion KRW) in annual sales again after it did so in 2015.

Although it was struggling during first half of this year due to lack of investments from semiconductor field, it seems now possible for SEMES to make $854 million (1 trillion KRW) in sales this year as Samsung Electronics has recently started investing into lines for 3D NAND-flash. 
It is expected that SEMES will make its greatest performance in next year due to increase in investments from its customers. It is heard that SEMES has laid out a goal for management to make middle-end of $854 million (1 trillion KRW) in next year.
According to an industry on the 29th, Samsung Electronics has been ordering equipment to produce 3D NAND-flash at 17 Line (named as 16-2 Line) in Hwasung and 18 Line in Pyeongtaek during second half of this year. SEMES also received orders to supply cleansing equipment and etching equipment. 

“SEMES had struggled during first half of this year due to lack of investments from semiconductor field and had been making most of its sales by supplying display equipment.” said a representative for an industry. “However as orders for semiconductor equipment have been flooding in during second half of this year, it is currently operating its production facilities at full strength.”
SEMES believes that it will be likely to make $854 million (1 trillion KRW) in sales again this year. SEMES for the past time made more than $854 million (1 trillion KRW) in annual sales last year by making $956 million (1.1189 trillion KRW). SEMES made $477 million (558.7 billion KRW) by end of third quarter. Although this number is lower compared to same time of last year, it is expected that it will make about $427 million (500 billion KRW) during fourth quarter.
Orders are also coming in for SHINWOO A&T, NAWOO ENG, and KOSDAQ-listed company called KODI-M that are in charge of parts of equipment and assemblies as part of SEMES’ primary partners. It is heard that secondary partners that supply goods to primary partners are also operating their plants at full strength. As SEMES set a goal for its sales in 2017 at the highest of its company’s history, it is expected that its partners will also show meaningful increase of trend of their performance. 

Most of sales for SEMES come from cleansing and etching equipment for semiconductor’s front-end processes and spinners. Cleansing equipment cleanses remaining gases that are left in wafers after deposition and etching processes. Etching equipment cuts off parts that are needed according to patterns that are formed from stepper exposure process. It is heard that these equipment bring many sales by becoming successfully commercialized items. Spinner is equipment that operates before and after stepper exposure process and sprays photo resist (coating solution) while spinning wafer disks develops them. 

It is predicted that equipment for test package field that is applied to back-end processes will continue to show growth. SEMES developed a lineup of equipment for test package that includes saw sorter (arranges packaging chips), prober (test), die bonder (adhesive for chips), and handler (adjusts packaging) due to increase in facility investments from Taiwanese foundry companies and necessity to go after Chinese markets and is actively going after foreign markets.
“Fact that SEMES set a goal for its sales in 2017 at the highest of its company’s history indicates that increase in investments from South Korea’s front-end and back-end semiconductor display industries.” said a representative for an industry. “It is predicted that most of sales for SEMES in 2017 will come from 3D NAND-flash and OLED display panels.”
Staff Reporter Han, Juyeop | [email protected]