SEMICS enters 200mm wafer prober market

Semiconductor wafer prober equipment maker SEMICS will enter the 200mm market for the first time. SEMICS has grown since its inception in 2000 by developing and commercializing 300mm prober equipment. SEMICS aims to achieve sales growth of more than 40% this year as it releases 200mm equipment that it has not as of yet been targeting.

Jung Il-suk, the managing director of SEMICS sales team, said, "The new 200mm wafer prober equipment OPUS Mini will be introduced at Semicon Korea 2019. The 200mm is 30-40% of the total prober market, there is a great expectation from the point of view that we can target the field."

The new equipment also achieved structural innovation requested by major customers. The existing prober moved a heavy head weighing around 1 ton and controlled the flatness. SEMICS new equipment moves the chuck that holds the wafer down, not the head. "If you move the chuck instead of the head, you can increase the reliability," Director Jung said and explained, "It is not easy to move the chuck minute by micrometer while holding the load above it." This structural innovation applies to 300mm prober equipment as well.

"The world wafer prober market is estimated to be 800 billion~1 trillion won per year. We will increase our competitiveness and achieve the world's largest market share," said Director Jung.

SEMICS has set a long-term vision to become a comprehensive semiconductor equipment company with annual sales of more than 500 billion won and sales of more than 1 trillion won as a single product of wafer prober. SEMICS posted sales of 49.8 billion won in 2017.Prober is the equipment that performs the final inspection process performed at the wafer stage. It controls the precision of the contact between the probe card (ProbeCard) and the wafer.