Nepes Ark to expand factory thanks to large client

Semiconductor testing company Nepes Ark was in the process of expanding its factory at Cheongan, the company said on Tuesday.

This was thanks to it securing a large customer, the company said.

Nepes Ark was planning to go public on KOSDAQ in November. It said 46.1 billion won out of the total fund it secures from the listing will be used to invest in its facilities.

It is procuring testing equipment from US’s Teradyne, Japan’s Advantest and South Korea’s Semes.

The company was also in talks with a US semiconductor company for a potential deal, Nepes Ark CEO Lee Chang-woo said. It will help it expand its testing business.

Parent company Nepes has secured fan-out wafer level package (WLP) technology as well as fan-out panel level package (PLP) technology. FO-PLP was more price competitive and technologically superior compared to FO-WLP, Lee said. The securing of FO-PLP technology opened doors for talks with the potential US customer, the CEO said.

Nepes Ark, together with Nepes, will offering semiconductor packaging and testing in turn-key to customers. This will make the offer highly competitive, Lee said.

Nepes Ark was founded in April 1, 2019. It was previously part of Nepes __ it was its testing division. Nepes wins orders for chip packages, bumping and testing __ it will give its testing work to Nepes Ark.

Samsung Electronics’ power management IC (PMIC) accounts for over 85% of Nepes Ark’s sales from wafer testing. Packaging test for Samsung’s OLED display driver IC accounts for the rest of its sales. These orders go through Nepes.

It plans to expand testing to CMOS image sensors, touch sensors and 5G RFIC next year.

Nepes Ark posted 6.5 billion won in net income, 20.7 billion won in operating income and 66.2 billion won in sales for the full year of 2019. It posted 900 million won in net income, 7.4 billion won in operating profits and 36.3 billion won in sales for the first half of 2020. 

Nepes Ark is planning an IPO for November. It will issue around 2.3 million shares. Its asking price is between 23,400 to 26,500 won.

It will secure at least 54.76 billion won if the IPO is successful. Nepes Ark will use 46.1 billion won to expand its facilities to handle the order from Samsung. It will also make labs to allow it to test 5G RF chip and system-on-a-chip.

Nepes Ark is led by Lee Chang-woo, the son of Nepes founder Lee Byung-koo. The younger Lee previously worked at SKC Solmics. He joined Nepes in 2010.