Production equipment maker AP Systems is aiming to manufacture more fab equipment next year to reach 100 billion won in revenue from the business.
The company, which had specialized more in display equipment in the past, is aiming to have the fab equipment business account for 20% of its total revenue, sources said.
The business unit is expected to record 66.4 billion in revenue this year, or 14.2% of its total revenue, an AP Systems spokesperson said.
Fab equipment had only accounted for 2% of its revenue back in 2017 with the majority of its total revenue coming from OLED panel production equipment.
But growth in the display panel sector has slowed in recent years and AP Systems has been prioritizing fab equipment.
Its flagship product is its rapid thermal processing machine used to process silicon wafers used in chip production.
The wafer goes through over 400 Celsius of heat rapidly for the wafer’s surface to be flattened.
The machine was developed together with Samsung in early 2000 with 8-inch wafers and AP Systems now also has equipment for 12-inch wafers.
The equipment maker began shipping the processing machines for NAND and then in 2019 for DRAM. It also offers them now for logic chip production.
AP Systems also began shipping sputter system machines to SK Hynix in 2018.
