Gudeng Equipment Co Ltd (家碩科技), a supplier of semiconductor equipment and components used in advanced chip manufacturing processes, yesterday said it has tentatively set a price of NT$216.8 per share for its debut on the Taipei Exchange next month at the earliest.
The price represents about a 15 percent premium compared with the auction price of NT$188.52 a share, which was based on the average trading price of the company’s shares on the Emerging Stock Market over a 30-day period before the auction.
Investors would be able to buy Gudeng Equipment shares through an auction or via subscription. Yuanta Securities Co (元大證券) is underwriting the initial public offering (IPO).
Photo: CNA
Gudeng Equipment offers automotive extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) pod surface inspection tools, a critical tool for EUV pod quality management.
Gudeng Equipment is 47.19 percent owned by Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登精密), the sole EUV pod supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電).
TSMC was the world’s first chipmaker to utilize EUV tools in producing an advanced version of its 7-nanometer chips in 2019 and now on more advanced chips.
Gudeng Equipment gave a bullish view about the company’s business prospects as a significant expansion in capital spending by the world’s major chipmakers on advanced technologies would provide a boon to the company, chairman Bill Chiu (邱銘乾) told investors on Monday.
“We are to benefiting from the AI [artificial intelligence] boom as more companies are joining the ranks of AMD and Nvidia in developing AI chips,” Chiu said.
Global semiconductor equipment spending on front-end facilities is expected to grow 21 percent year-on-year this year to US$92 billion, with Taiwan continuing to be the biggest spender, SEMI has forecast.
For Gudeng Equipment, China is to be a new growth engine as Chinese chipmakers are racing to produce advanced chips, Chiu said.
China accounted for a mere 3 percent of the company’s total revenue last year, while Taiwan contributed about 70 percent and the US 13 percent.
Since a key customer operates chip manufacturing facilities in Ireland, Gudeng Equipment has also started shipping equipment to that nation.
To cope with rising demand, Gudeng Equipment is planning to build a new factory in Tainan later this year, it said.
Gudeng Equipment last year posted a net profit of NT$228 million, up 12.32 percent from NT$203 million in 2022. Gross margin improved to 49 percent last year from 43 percent the previous year.
Revenue grew 15.24 percent year-on-year to NT$1.21 billion last year from NT$1.05 billion.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) investment project in Arizona has progressed better than expected, but it still faces challenges such as water and labor shortages, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Yeh Chun-hsien (葉俊顯) said yesterday. Speaking with reporters after visiting TSMC’s Arizona hub and attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit in Maryland last week, Yeh said TSMC’s Arizona site turned a profit of NT$16.14 billion (US$514 million) last year in its first full year of mass production. “TSMC told me it was surprised by the smooth trial run of the first fab, which has left the company optimistic about the project’s outlook,”
RSS