Softer Memory Market Impacts Probe Card Manufacturers
Staff -- Semiconductor International, 5/16/2008 8:10:00 AM
VLSI Research Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) reports that weakness in the semiconductor industry pushed down sales growth of probe cards used for testing IC wafers to 13.9% in 2007, just half the five-year historic average growth rate. According to VLSI, 2008 will be a particularly difficult year for those serving the memory IC market. Sales of probe cards are forecast to reach $1.41B in 2008 from $1.36B in 2007, which represents an annual growth of only 3.4%.
In 2007, the leading suppliers of the probe cards were FormFactor (Livermore, Calif.), Micronics Japan Co. (Tokyo) and JEM (Fremont ,Calif.), while Phicom (Seoul, Korea) moved into fourth position, up from sixth in 2006. SV Probe (Gilbert, Ariz.) was 2007’s fifth largest supplier.
Despite the industry slowdown, the probe card market continues to outpace the semiconductor IC market, with an average annual growth rate of 28% over the past five years. This growth has been fueled by the demands of memory IC testing, where the historic five-year cumulative annual growth rate for memory bits shipped has been over 90%.
