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Technology Stocks : Amkor Technology Inc (AMKR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tech101 who wrote (236)	6/17/1999 5:21:00 PM
From: tech101	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1056

Amkor is the non-disputable leader in the independent packaging/testing business. They have more than 30% of world market share. When the outsource trend continues to grow and reaches about 35% level from the current 15% of total chip packaging/testing in three-four years, one in every nine semiconductor chips produced by the entire world will be packaged and tested by Amkor. Amkor is also the clear leader in chip packaging/testing technology. Amkor owns about 50 patents in the chip packaging/testing technology and has been focusing on the advanced high-margin products (with more than 50% of revenue) while keeping a remote distance from the commodity DRAM business. If we pay just a little attention to the recent news announcements, we have to be noticing that Amkor's recent efforts are clearly concentrated in the following three aspects of the most advanced packaging/testing products: 1. FC (Flip Chip) technology, including FC CSP (Flip Chip - Chip Scale Packaging), FC BGA (Flip Chip BGA), and HP FC BGA (High Performance FC BGA). FC provides very small size packaging with a tiny height about 1 mm and extremely high frequency (as high as 2.5 GH.) Amkor has a flip chip manufacturing line in its P3 factory in Manila, Philippines already developing Flip Chip solutions for 10 IC manufacturers, and it just announced on May 27, 99 the opening of its U.S. based Flip Chip development center in Arizona (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/990527/pa_amkor_t_1.html) 2. SOC (System On a Chip) -- the next generation of digital IC that incorporates 1-5 million logic gates implemented in nanometer technologies reaching below 0.20 micron. In a system with multiple chips, electrical signalling requirements create an inherent latency in communication between those chips. To offset the negative effects of this latency, protocols are invented to allow parallel activities with plenty of address and data buffering. A large portion of the external ASICs (Application Specific IC) consists of address, data buffers, and the state machines needed to control their operation. With SOC, all the system functions are squeesed into the single chip when floating point units were integrated, when cache controllers were integrated, and now when memory, I/O, and graphics interfaces are integrated. SOC allows simpler protocols to be used on-chip, eliminating the need for many buffers and minimizing latency for data movement among the CPU, DRAM, and I/O thus optimizing the performance. This integration has only been made possible due to advances in CMOS and packaging technologies. Modern microprocessors are implemented in 0.18-0.25 micron five-layer metal topologies. Coupled to this innovation is the advancement in packaging technology - PBGA, uBGA (BGA), and FC bonding techniques that provide high pin count and greatly improved pin bandwidth. In May, 1999, Amkor made announcement on a new process for SOC with successful qualification and production release of Ultra Low Power 1.8V Process (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/990504/pa_amkor_1.html) 3. MicroBGA Chip Scale Packaging -- The uBGA package offers equipment manufacturers the lowest surface mount package profile (less than 0.9 mm of mounted height) while also significantly reducing the footprint on a circuit board (requiring only about 10-20 % more area than the silicon chip itself). It is constructed using a thin flexible circuit tape substrate and low stress elastomer for die attachment. The die is mounted face down on the substrate with its electrical pads connected using a method similar to TAB bonding. After bonding these leads to the die, solder balls are attached to pads on the bottom of the substrate, in a rectangular matrix similar to other BGA packages. The backside of the die is exposed allowing heat sinking if required for thermal applications. Amkor delivered more than 14 million uBGA packages since the state-of-the-art package was introduced in 1998. With the announcement made in March 99, Amkor planed to double production capacity, to 6.0 million units per month, of its uBGA chip-scale (CSP) packages by mid-1999. (see amkor.com All these state-of-the-art technologies provide high pin count, small size, and greatly improved performance and pin bandwidth applicable to microprocessors, satellite communications, high-speed Internet switches, disk drives, Rambus DRAM, HDTV, and hand-held/wireless applications, like digital cellular phone, notebooks, sub-notebooks, PDA's, camcorders, and so on. All these announcements are clearly indicating Amkor's investment and efforts in keeping their cutting edge staying ahead over competitions. Y.Z.