Company expected to hit record revenue again in 2022
Semes, the chip fab equipment subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, said on Friday that it has recorded 3.12 trillion won in revenue and 353.3 billion won in operating profit for the entire year of 2021.
It is the company’s best annual performance to date. Revenue and operating profit also increased 41% and 24%, respectively, from 2020, its previous highest annual earnings to date.
Semes said fab equipment accounted for 75% of its annual revenue in 2021, while flat panel display equipment accounted for 1.7%. The rest came from contract work.
In 2020, fab equipment had accounted for 61.24% of its annual revenue while flat panel display equipment had accounted for 9.9%.
This shows that the company is seeing demand for fab equipment increasing, while its flat panel display equipment shipment is probably dropping from Samsung less in its display business from exiting the liquid crystal display (LCD) panel sector.
Semes’ main customer Samsung Electronics had been expanding spending on its fabs since 2020 to meet the high demand for chips and to develop advanced process nodes.
In 2019, Samsung Electronics spent 22.6 trillion won on its semiconductor facilities; this increased to 32.9 trillion won in 2020 and 43.6 trillion won in 2021.
Last year, the tech giant spent the most on 10nm DRAM and NAND flash memory chips which use extreme ultraviolet (EUV) equipment in their production.
Samsung is also investing aggressively in its EUV 5nm foundry fab at Pyeongtaek.
People familiar with the matter said Semes is also seeing high demand for etching equipment.
Etching equipment is used to etch out materials from the wafer and is one of the most difficult pieces of equipment to manufacture in the front-end process of wafer fabrication.
Semes focused on cleaners up to mid-2010 but began supplying its own etching equipment to Samsung around that time.
The people said out of Semes’ annual revenue figure for 2021, around 1 trillion won came from etching equipment.
The company is working to win contracts for high-end etching equipment from Samsung over rivals Lam Research and Tokyo Electron.
Semes is expected to record even higher annual revenue this year compared to 2021 as Samsung is expected to continue its aggressive spending on fabs this year.
