Advantest rides second half surge to record sales

Full year sales were $2.94bn and topped the 300-billion-yen mark for the first time in the company’s history. Net income was $65m.

System on chip testers led the way chalking up orders worth $1.53 billion, a rise of 22% on the previous years. Memory testers posted orders worth $604 million, up 12.8% year on year.

Mechatronics systems and services and support contributed $397 million and $589 million respectively.

Regionally $91 million worth of orders came from China followed by Taiwan with $74 million and South Korea at $73 million.

Commenting on the SoC tester market Michael Stichlmair (pictured), Managing Director, Advantest Europe said, “In addition to strong HPC-related demand for testers, competition from smartphone makers stimulated demand for testers across a wide range of applications.”

“The memory tester market grew and expanded on rising demand principally related to data centres and game consoles, and on growing Chinese memory investments,” he added.

He expects demand to grow in the SoC tester market in 2021, mainly driven by smartphones and HPC, amidst ongoing active technological investment in leading-edge semiconductors

In the memory tester market, technology investments in areas such as advanced nodes, multilayer NAND, and higher speeds / bandwidths are driving tester demand.

In parallel Advantest will build out its production and support system to meet the current high level of orders and anticipated demand growth.

Stuart Ainslie, Senior Director, Business Development for Advantest explained, “With backlog at a high level, we are taking a forward-looking approach to parts procurement and production, and will also take measures to prevent risks from manifesting.”