Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE), the world’s largest outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) company, will see its 2017 sales growth outperform the global logic IC industry's, according to company COO Tien Wu.

Judging from customer demand, ASE expects to post sequential revenue growth through the fourth quarter of 2017, said Wu. For all of the year, the company's growth will exceed the world's logic IC industry growth estimated at 3-4%, Wu indicated.

Nevertheless, the overall semiconductor industry is expected to perform strongly in 2017 thanks mainly to growth coming from the memory sector, Wu identified. The remark echoed similar comments made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which forecast a stronger memory market will lead to a 7% rise in the global 2017 market for ICs. Excluding memory, the overall chip sector will see a smaller 4% increase, according to TSMC co-CEO Mark Liu.

Wu also expressed concerns about China-based chipmakers' aggressive capacity expansions, which could impact the market and price stability in the future.

As a world leading IC backend services provider, ASE is aware of the importance of technology innovation to move forward. ASE has stepped up its R&D investments over the past three years, and expects to see the efforts bear fruit in 2017-2018, Wu noted.

ASE's capex for 2017 will be implemented in accordance with its plans set earlier in 2017, Wu added. ASE disclosed previously its 2017 capex will be higher than the nearly US$700 million spent in 2016, with a focus on fan-out packaging and other advanced packaging technologies.

ASE expects its flip-chip (FC) packaging, bumping and wafer-level packaging businesses to continue growing robustly in 2017, Wu indicated. The company will also be engaged in the development of new technologies such as fan-out packaging, copper pillar packaging and embedded substrate technologies.

ASE also plans to expand production capacity for panel-level fan-out packaging to accelerate the industry's transition from wafer-level to panel-level processing, according to Wu.

In other news, ASE's shareholders have approved the distribution of a cash dividend per share of NT$1.40 (US$0.05) for 2016, when the company saw its net profits climb to NT$21.69 billion, the second-highest annual level in the company's history. ASE posted EPS of NT$2.83 for 2016 compared with NT$2.51 a year earlier, when consolidated revenues slid 3% on year to NT$274.88 billion.

By: DocMemory
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