Chip test suppliers feel brunt of downturn, says
Teradyne manager
By Mark LaPedus
Semiconductor Business News
(02/08/01 15:43 p.m. PST)
SAN FRANCISCO -- While some
semiconductor capital equipment
segments remain relatively
stable--such as lithography
tools--the IC tester business is
getting hit hard by the current
downturn, said a manager from
Teradyne Inc. during an investment
conference here today.
"The bookings situation [in automatic test equipment] is a
challenging one to say the least," said Thomas Newman, vice
president of corporate relations at Boston-based Teradyne.
"The business is under pressure," Newman said in a brief
interview after his presentation at the Banc of America
conference. "There is an over-capacity situation in the
business. We don't think that the situation is going to
change for the next quarter or two."
During presentations on Wednesday, ASM Lithography said
demand for exposure tools--in particular 300-mm wafer
scanners--was holding steady despite downward pressure on
semiconductor capital spending this year. The Dutch
lithography vendor said its orders continued to exceed its
capacity for 2001 (see Feb. 8 story).
But the business conditions are extremely weak in automatic
test equipment and backend chip-assembly tools, said
analysts attending the conference. "The book-to-bill for
back-end assembly equipment and test is 0.7," said Joseph
Liu, who tracks the business for Murphy Investment
Management in Half Moon Bay, Calif. "The front-end
equipment players, like Applied and Novellus, are doing
okay," he said.
Outside of the struggling ATE segment, Teradyne's other
business units continue to grow at solid rates, said Newman.
Market demand continues to be healthy, for example, in
broadband network test systems for cable and digital
subscriber line (DSL) applications, he said. Teradyne's
connector and contract manufacturing service business now
represents nearly half of the company's sales. |
