Chunghwa Precision Test Technology Co (CHPT, 中華精測), a chip testing and wafer probing services provider, yesterday reported record-high quarterly revenue for last quarter totaling NT$1.36 billion (US$42.5 million), setting the scene for the company to report gradual growth each quarter this year driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom.
Revenue last quarter expanded 5.43 percent quarter-on-quarter from NT$1.29 billion in the fourth quarter last year and grew 18.26 percent year-on-year from NT$1.15 billion, bucking the downtrend in the traditional slow season.
Strong demand for high-seed load boards used in final testing for chips used in high-performance-computing (HPC) devices fueled revenue growth last month, setting an all-time high, CHPT said in a statement yesterday.
Photo: Lisa Wang, Taipei Times
Non-recurring engineering income from offering engineering verification services for application processors also helped propel revenue growth last month, it said.
By segment, HPC was the largest revenue contributor last year, making up 37 percent, followed by application processors’ 25 percent.
“As AI hardware is penetrating edge devices rather than only being adopted in cloud-based computing centers, demand for high-speed load boards increases rapidly,” CHPT said.
The growth was also driven by a shift in AI hardware from a content creator to a physical AI machine capable of perceiving, understanding and interacting with the physical world, CHPT said.
To cope with explosive demand from AI semiconductor customers, the company last month said it planned to invest NT$3.588 billion on building a new factory in Taoyuan’s Pingzhen District (平鎮).
The new factory, Fab 3, is expected to start operations in the second half of 2028, focusing on providing higher-price and advanced probe cards, as well as probe printed circuit boards for wafer testing and substrates for vertical probe cards.
The capacity expansion aims to meet increasing demand for high-end microelectro-mechanical systems, probe cards and substrates, further strengthening its capability to provide all-in-house services, the company said.
Before that, CHPT said it has adopted a strategic move by leasing a manufacturing facility to expand production capacity in the short term to adapt to strong and urgent demand from customers.
Separately, CHPT yesterday said it would seek an appeal against the first-instance judgement by Taiwan’s Intellectual and Commercial Court on a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Italy’s Technoprobe SPA.
An interlocutory judgement by the court determined that a semi-finished probe produced in one of CHPT’s experiments at the time the evidence was preserved falls within the scope of the patent in dispute. Technoprobe requested NT$31.65 million in damages.
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