Chip analysis providers report record-high sales

LOOKING AHEAD: MA-tek said it expects CPO-related analysis services, which have a high average selling price, to become a growth driver in the long-term

Major semiconductor material and failure analysis services providers Materials Analysis Technology Inc (MA-tek, 閎康) and Msscorps Co (汎銓) reported record-high revenue for the second quarter of this year amid surging demand for analysis services for advanced and artificial intelligence (AI) chips.

The two companies are positive about their business outlook as they are gearing up for the arrival of a new era with optics gradually replacing traditional copper wires inside large-scale AI data centers to overcome the bandwidth, heat and energy limits of electrical signals.

MA-tek’s revenue expanded 20.44 percent year-on-year to NT$1.65 billion (US$51.51 million) last quarter, while Msscorps’ grew 16.58 percent to NT$635 million, the companies said.

Revenue in the first half of this year totaled NT$3.07 billion for MA-tek, up 17.47 percent annually, and NT$1.21 billion for Msscorps, up 20.24 percent, they said.

“The growth momentum was mainly fueled by active development of AI chips globally and acceleration in development of advanced process nodes,” MA-tek said in a statement yesterday. “The development of those cutting-edge technologies is driving demand for material and failure analysis.”

Rising demand for its services for advanced processors, silicon photonics and copackaged optics (CPO) also helped boost its revenue growth, Msscorps said.

Amid the AI boom, “material analysis, failure analysis and optical inspection are playing an increasingly critical role in semiconductor development and volume production,” Msscorps said in a separate statement on Monday.

Material and failure analysis would help improve chip production yield for the CPO architecture system, which is built by packaging optical components with AI chips, the company said.

On Monday, the company’s board approved the issuing of 6 million new shares to raise funds to expand its analytical equipment and capacity.

MA-tek also said the development of silicon photonics and CPO technology is boosting demand for new types of analysis, adding that the company installed its first fault localization platform last month to help customers reduce costs and shrink their products’ time to market.

The company expects CPO-related analysis services, which are highly customized and have high average selling prices, to become a key growth driver in the medium to long-term.

Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) last month delivered his vision on the future of AI data center connectivity, saying that the company “should use copper as much as we can, for as long as we can, but copper has its limits.”

“The right strategy is to scale up with copper as long as you can — after that you scale up further with optics, you scale out with optics and you scale across with optics. So you use optics wherever you must, you use copper wherever you can,” he said.