Type Public Industry Semiconductors Founded 1997 | Traded as SGX: U12 Headquarters Singapore | |
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Key people Charles Chen Chih Yuan, Chairman
Dr. John Nelson, CEO Revenue S$569.9 million (FY 2006) Net income S$144.0 million (FY 2006) | ||
United Test and Assembly Center Ltd (Abbreviation: UTAC; Chinese: 联合科技; pinyin: Liánhé Kēzhì) is one of the largest providers of test and assembly services for a wide range of semiconductor devices, including memory, mixed-signal/RF and logic integrated circuits. Founded in 1997 and commencing full operations in 1999, the company started out by acquiring the semiconductor test operations of Fujitsu Microelectronics Asia Pte. Ltd.
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At the end of 2006, the company was ranked the fifth largest independent provider of semiconductor tests by Gartner Dataquest. Headquartered in Singapore, UTAC has manufacturing facilities in Singapore, Shanghai, China and Taiwan with global sales offices located worldwide including the United States, Italy and Japan.
Significant milestones
In 2003, UTAC established its wholly owned Shanghai operations in Waigaoqiao - a free trade zone in Shanghai. It also formed an alliance with Amkor Technology Inc. in China, combining the strengths of both companies to create a powerful turnkey assembly and test supplier capable of supporting as well as Integrated Device Manufacturers looking to service their end customers in the China market. This partnership was further enhanced in 2007 when both companies announced that they had entered into a multi-year cross-licensing agreement under which Amkor would license its MicroLeadFrame patents to UTAC, and UTAC would license its QFN patents to Amkor. The agreement covers the license of intellectual property rights and transfer of associated packaging technologies.
In 2005, UTAC completed the acquisition of UltraTera Corp. to become a leading test player in the world. In the same year, the company announced several joint ventures with SMIC to build a test and assembly center in Chengdu, China and with Korea's Nepes Corp to build the first 12-inch wafer bumping facility in Singapore.
In 2006, UTAC announced its plans to acquire Thailand-based NS Electronics Bangkok (NSEB) for S$175 million after announcing plans to invest S$500 million into its Singapore operations.
June 26, 2007 : Proposed acquisition of UTAC by Global A&T Electronics, a special purpose company formed by Affinity Equity Partners and TPG Capital.
Main customers
Some of UTAC's customers include:
- Seagate - a global hard disk drive manufacturer.
- Qualcomm - a wireless telecommunications technology provider.
- SanDisk - a manufacturer of flash memory.
- Hynix - a global memory semiconductor manufacturer.