New Competitors Join IC Packaging Foundry Business

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An Independent Journal Dedicated to the Advancement of Chip - Scale Electronics

January - February 2000

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New Competitors Join IC Packaging Foundry Business

If you've been wondering whether the IC assembly industry was in a slow growth phase, let me put your mind to rest. It's not. Witness two new Asia-based packaging foundries, ATEC and STECO.

It's likely that you've never heard of STECO Ltd., a Korean IC packaging foundry, but that's about to change.

STECO is a joint venture of Korean Giant Samsung and Toray Industries, an equipment and materials supplier based in Japan.

We recently met with S.H. Oh, a STECO senior manager, when he visited San Jose on one leg of a whirlwind U.S. tour. Oh's mission was to broadcast the company's name and capabilities throughout the land.

By Ron Iscoff, Editor

By way of background, STECO was established in June 1995, with Samsung as 51 percent owner and Toray a 49 percent owner. Until recently, however, STECO was captive to Samsung for packaging flip-chip-on-film, tape carrier packages and TAB. In July 1998, STECO began running the µBGA package in volume production.

The STECO factory now offers a capacity of five million TCPs per month and two million µBGA packages per month, according to Oh. While the company still reports to Samsung, its services are now available on the open market, Oh emphasized.

The factory at Chichiwon, Korea, employs a workforce of some 236, and has a production area of 4,596 meters square in a 9,830 meter square building. Half of the production area is currently reserved for future expansion. For more information, contact STECO's U.S. rep, Steven Han at shan@logusinc.com or peruse the STECO Web site.

Add ATEC

Speaking of packaging foundries, you can add a new one, ATEC International, in the Light Industry and Science Park at Cabuyao, Laguna, Philippines, to your A list.

We learned about ATEC from Sam Gomez, formerly of Pacific Semicon-ductor, at November's MEPTECH conference in San Jose.

ATEC was founded about six years ago as ATI. Until its rebirth as ATEC, the company populated PC boards and assembled desktop computers.

"ATEC is completely new, with 100,000 square feet currently and plans to expand into another 100,000 square feet," Gomez, vice president of sales and marketing, says.

The assembler is specializing in MCMs, hybrids, multichip packages, chip-on-board and special orders. Contact Gomez at the company's U.S. sales office: ATEC International Corp., 2033 Gateway Place, Suite 600, San Jose, CA 95110. E-mail sgomez@atec-us.com or phone 408.573.6805.

We've Got Answers

Here are the answers to our trivia quiz from the November-December issue. If you missed the questions, visit our hosted Web site at ChipScaleReview.com. The winner was Dennis Wagner of Precision Technologies Inc., Santa Clara.

1. Indy Electronics originally operated plants in Manteca, Calif. and Mexico.

2. Before Amkor became the dominant IC assembler, Stanford Microsys-tems Inc., Manila, was the IC packaging leader. Pictured was Chris Concepcion, its chairman.

3. W. D. Smith was the founder of MEPPE, predecessor of MEPTEC. The original board members were Norbert Emanuel, Paul Flaskerud and Duane Wadsworth.

4. Bob Marrs, founder of Abpac Inc., left the industry for several years to import shrimp from Mexico.

5. Nandi Prasad, now president of Gateway Electronics, a Philippines-based IC assembler, was the first GM of this former American Microsys-tems Inc. plant.

6. Deltron Automation was funded originally by Deltron Motors. Prncipals included Dr. Robert Tyler, Robert Prescott and Ray Brachelli.

7. Abpac, Advanced Microtronics Technology, Alphatec, Amertron, Amkor, Apack Technologies, ASAT, ASE and now ATEC. Have we left out anybody?

8. Karl Nicklaus, ESEC chairman

9. Paul Driscoll, formerly with National Semiconductor

10. Casablanca in Algiers, North Africa

11. Fairchild Semiconductor set up an IC assembly plant at Shiprock, N.M., on an Indian reservation.

12. Amkor is headquartered in West Chester, Pa. Its Chairman is James Kim.

Give yourself a pat on the back if you got them all right. Until next issue, send your news to me at chipreview@ mediaone.net.