Amkor Technology Announces Factory Expansion Plans for Philippines and Korea.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers CHANDLER, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2000 To keep pace with the explosive growth within the semiconductor industry, Amkor Technology Amkor Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMKR) is a high-tech semiconductor product manufacturer that includes Intel and IBM among its primary customers. Previously headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States, Amkor recently announced that it will move to Chandler, , Inc., (Nasdaq: AMKR AMKR Amkor Technology ), already the world's largest provider of contract semiconductor packaging and test services, today detailed plans to expand its production and test facilities in the Republic of Korea and the Philippines. The projects will add more than 800,000 square feet of factory space by mid-2001. The expansion announcement comes as Amkor completes its $1.4 billion acquisition of Anam Semiconductor, Inc.'s three remaining packaging and test factories in Korea. With the acquisition, Amkor's offshore factories now occupy approximately 3.6 million square feet, split between 2.6 million square feet in Korea and one million square feet in the Philippines. Amkor President John Boruch said, "We are expanding our facilities to handle increasing customer demand and to accommodate the dramatic forecasted growth in new advanced packages. "We believe about 80 percent of new advanced packages are being outsourced, including system in package, vision technology and wireless applications. This expansion, along with the investments we have made in the development of advanced packaging technologies, puts us in a strong position to meet these demands," he said. Construction is underway on a 512,000 square foot building near Manila Manila (mənĭl`ə), city (1990 pop. 1,601,234), capital of the Philippines, SW Luzon, on Manila Bay. Manila is the center of the country's largest metropolitan area, its chief port, and the focus of all governmental, commercial, industrial, that will be called P4. The project will provide space for Amkor's expanding business in System in Package (SiP) modules, test and advanced packages. A 200,000 square foot addition to accommodate Amkor's growing test business has just been completed in the Philippines, freeing floor space in the existing factory for growth of new ball-grid array product lines. Amkor operates more than 500 IC testers in the Philippines and Korea, which constitutes one of the largest contract test operations in the world. Expansion of K4, the largest and newest of Amkor's four Korean plants, started this year and will continue for several years. The initial phase will improve the ratio of manufacturing to non-manufacturing space, improving the efficiency of the existing building. The design phase for a 20,000 square foot class-100, flip chip A chip packaging technique in which the active area of the chip is "flipped over" facing downward. Instead of facing up and bonded to the package leads with wires from the outside edges of the chip, any surface area of the flip chip can be used for interconnection, which is typically done wafer (1) A small, thin continuous-loop magnetic tape cartridge that has been used from time to time for data storage and specialized applications. (2) The base unit of chip making. It is a slice taken from a salami-like silicon crystal ingot up to 12" (300mm) in diameter. bumping area also is underway. Facility completion is scheduled by the first quarter of 2001. Phase two of the K4 expansion will add 100,000 square feet of manufacturing space to accommodate growth through 2001. Amkor has enough property at the K4 site to add an additional 1.5 million square feet of manufacturing space adjacent to the existing buildings. "Much of our focus in this expansion is to improve the effective productivity of our manufacturing space to provide our customers the most value," said Mike O'Brien, Amkor's executive vice president for manufacturing operations Manufacturing operations concern the operation of a facility, as opposed to maintenance, supply and distribution, health, and safety, emergency response, human resources, security, information technology and other infrastructural support organizations. and order fulfillment Order fulfillment (in BE also: order fulfilment) is in the most general sense the complete process from point of sales inquiry to delivery of a product to the customer. Sometimes Order fulfillment . "Typically, in semiconductor assembly and test factories, non-manufacturing space consumes a significant portion of the total factory space. Our new building design models have substantially higher levels of manufacturing space than in conventional construction." "Besides building additional space, Amkor is focused on improving production output per square foot in existing space," O'Brien said. "We are accomplishing this objective by installing more productive equipment, implementing new manufacturing concepts such as high-density lead-frame, and achieving much higher utilization rates through better planning tools." About Amkor Technology: Amkor Technology, Inc. is the world's largest provider of contract microelectronics manufacturing solutions. The company offers semiconductor companies and electronics OEMs a complete set of microelectronic design and manufacturing services, including deep sub-micron wafer fabrication Wafer Fabrication is a procedure composed of many repeated sequential processes to produce complete electrical or photonic circuits. Examples include production of radio frequency (RF) amplifiers, LEDs, optical computer components, and CPUs for computers. ; wafer probe, wafer mapping, characterization A rather long and fancy word for analyzing a system or process and measuring its "characteristics." For example, a Web characterization would yield the number of current sites on the Web, types of sites, annual growth, etc. and reliability testing; IC packaging design and assembly; multi-chip module A Multi-Chip Module or MCM is a specialized electronic package where multiple integrated circuits (ICs), semiconductor dies or other modules are packaged in such a way as to facilitate their use as a single IC. design and assembly; and final testing. More information on Amkor is available from the company's SEC filings and on Amkor's web site: www.amkor.com. Forward-Looking Statement forward-looking statement A projected financial statement based on management expectations. A forward-looking statement involves risks with regard to the accuracy of assumptions underlying the projections. : This news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainty that could cause actual results to differ from anticipated results. Further information on risk factors that could affect the outcome of events set forth in these statements and that would affect the company's operating results and financial condition is detailed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Report on Form 10-K Form 10-K A report required by the SEC from exchange-listed companies that provides for annual disclosure of certain financial information. Form 10-K See 10-K. for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1999. |
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