Hanmi, other chip machine makers to benefit from TSMC capex hike

Hanmi Semiconductor Co., a chip equipment supplier to global foundry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), has posted record profit and sales on the growing demand for chip packaging and test equipment.

The South Korean chip equipment manufacturer on Wednesday posted a 2021 operating profit of 122.4 billion won ($103 million) on revenue of 373.1 billion won. The results, both all-time highs, are up 84% and 45% from the previous year, respectively.

The company’s stellar earnings come as chipmakers are significantly increasing their capital spending plans to expand and upgrade their facilities in preparation for post-pandemic semiconductor demand.

Earlier this week, TSMC, the world's largest contract semiconductor maker, said it will spend as much as $44 billion to increase its manufacturing capacity in 2022, up from $30 billion last year – at the time a company record.

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s No. 2 foundry chipmaker, is also spending tens of billions of dollars annually to catch up to its bigger rival.

Analysts said Korean semiconductor equipment players stand to benefit from facility expansions by major chipmakers as sales of smartphones, personal computers and other electric devices are increasing with many people still working from home.

Hanmi Semiconductor, one of the world’s leading chip machinery makers, partly attributed its decent earnings growth to cost cuts following the development and internalization in June last year of a chip package cutting machine, called micro SAW. Previously, the company imported sawing equipment from Japan.

The machine is essential to making its main product Vision Placement, semiconductor cleaning and test equipment.

“With the development of micro SAW, we were able to cut costs by 90 billion won a year,” said Hanmi Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Kwak Dong-shin.

Industry watchers said Hanmi’s new product, Meta Grinder, will also help boost its earnings this year. Meta Grinder is a grinding machine for virtual reality and augmented reality glasses, key process equipment for semiconductor 3D (3D) packages.

Hanmi Semiconductor is forecast to post 140.8 billion in operating profit on revenue of 436.7 billion won in 2022, according to the market consensus.

INDUSTRY'S TECHNOLOGY ADVANCEMENT

Leeno Industrial Inc., another Korean chip test equipment maker, is also expected to post strong earnings this year.

The maker of test pins and sockets for non-memory chips, which has yet to report its 2021 earnings, is widely expected to have earned 114.1 billion won operating profit on sales of 276.6 billion last year, up 46% and 37%, respectively from a year earlier.

“The global non-memory industry will post stable growth in the coming years on the expansion of autonomous driving, artificial intelligence and 5G networks,” said IBK Securities analyst Lee Kun-jae.

Wonik IPS Co., which develops a system that fabricates an integrated circuit on the substrate, will benefit from the chip industry’s advancement in the manufacturing process.

Wonik IPS has a specialty in what is known as plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), a chemical vapor deposition process used to deposit thin films from a gas state to a solid state on a substrate.

“As chipmakers are increasingly adopting the 4-nanometer process technology, precision equipment will be in greater demand,” said a local chip machine company official.

Write to Shin-Young Park at nyusos@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.