SFA signs display equipment deal with China's Tianma Microelectronics

SFA Engineering Corp., South Korea's largest manufacturer of display manufacturing equipment, on Wednesday said it landed an order worth 142.1 billion won ($111 million) from Chinese display panel maker Tianma Microelectronics. 

SFA earned a turnkey order for a logistics system featuring stocker and overhead shuttle for use in the production line for 8.6-generation LCD display panels that Tianma will build in Xiamen, Fujian province. Production and supply of the equipment are expected by year's end.

Through this order, SFA will speed up its advance into the global equipment market, with its annual order volume last year reaching 1.3 trillion won, up 60% from 2021, thanks to securing secondary batteries, semiconductors and distribution as new core industries based on smart factory technology and finding new clients at home and abroad.

The new units have shown brisk growth, with secondary batteries accounting for half of SFA's orders of 867.8 billion won in the third quarter last year. In semiconductors, the company also beat out Japanese competitors like Daifuku and Muratec to win an order for automation equipment for the wafer manufacturing process worth 44 billion won from GlobalWafers of Taiwan, one of the world's top three makers of silicon wafers.

"Smart factories that are differentiated thanks to self-developed smart technologies such as artificial intelligence, predictive maintenance and big data analysis are proving their competitiveness on the global stage one after the other," SFA CEO Kim Young-min said. "We will expand our growth engines by focusing our capacity on high-growth industries such as secondary batteries, semiconductors and distribution as well as conventional displays," he added. 

Write to Byung-Keun Kim at bk11@hankyung.com