Amkor Technology to acquire European’s largest OSATS
Although no sum was disclosed, Nanium which employs approximately 550 people and had annual sales of approximately $40 million for its fiscal year ended September 30, 2016 was certainly an easy buy for Amkor hoping to close the transaction in the first quarter of 2017.
This acquisition of Nanium will strengthen Amkor’s position in the fast growing market of wafer-level packaging for smartphones, tablets and other applications. The Portuguese company has developed a high-yielding, reliable WLFO technology, and has successfully ramped that technology to high volume production, shipping nearly one billion WLFO packages to date utilizing a state-of-the-art 300mm Wafer-Level Packaging (WLP) production line.
It remains to be seen if Nanium’s know-how, IP portfolio and production capacity will stay in Europe or if Amkor will transfer the newly acquired technology to one or more of it numerous manufacturing lines in Asia. Amkor’s IC package assembly and test lines are preponderantly situated in China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan.
Or it may be that some of the research and development activities would remain in Europe, close to key customers, while production could be offshored. The future will tell if Europe will keep or lose its last standing OSATS capacity.
Visit Amkor Technology at www.amkor.com
Visit Nanium at www.nanium.com
Related news:
Amkor opens MEMS packaging line in China
Nanium takes wafer-level packaging to XXL
Fan-out wafer level packaging fills gap to 3D, says Yole
