Automated optical inspection tool supplier Machvision Inc (牧德科技) is positive about its business outlook as customers are procuring inspection tools to handle the artificial intelligence (AI) boom.
“We are very optimistic about order visibility from the third quarter this year to the first half of next year,” Machvision chief executive officer Jasper Chen (陳復生) said at an online earnings conference on Tuesday. “The challenge is not to secure more orders, but rather securing [sufficient] material capacity.”
“This is a situation that has never happened to the company before,” Chen said.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
Machvision hiked prices by about 5 to 8 percent in May to pass higher raw material costs on to customers, he said.
Machvision provides automated inspection tools for high-end IC substrate manufacturing and automated vision inspection tools for chip manufacturing and packaging.
The AI boom has significantly accelerated the adoption and advancement of the company’s products for producing AI-related chips or components such as optical transceiver modules, Chen said.
Machvision has received orders to deliver 20 units of wafer automated visual inspection (AVI) systems, signaling better demand than last year, he said.
Wafer AVI is a high-efficiency inspection system specifically engineered for semiconductor back-end assembly and testing and wafer fabrication processes. Machvision commands about an 80 percent share of that market, it said.
In addition, Machvision has secured preliminary orders of NT$2 billion (US$62.7 million) to supply optical transceiver modules from several first-tier printed circuit board clients, Chen said.
The company plans to start shipments this quarter, he said.
Because of strong customer demand, Machvision saw strong order backlog with a longer lead time of about six months, compared with two-and-a-half to three months in the past, Chen said.
The company has received customer prepayment of NT$250 million, he said.
The company said it has secured orders from multiple clients, dismissing speculation that it only supplies wafer automated vision inspection systems to its major shareholder ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控). ASE, which owns about 23 percent of Machvision shares, is the world’s biggest chip packager and tester.
The company also counts the nation’s major PCB suppliers, including Unimicron Technology Corp (欣興電子), Nan Ya Printed Circuit Board Corp (南亞電路板) and Kinsus Interconnect Technology Corp (景碩), among its customers, it said.
Machvision’s net profit fell 3 percent annually to NT$295 million in the first quarter. Earnings per share dropped to NT$4.61 from NT$4.75 and gross margin declined to 60.6 percent from 64 percent over the period.
The company’s shares climbed 9.89 percent to close at NT$778 yesterday, having risen about 50 percent since the beginning of this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
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