Taiwan-based distributors for IC fabrication and packaging materials have all seen their order visibility extended to the first quarter of 2022, bolstered by a persistent booming semiconductor industry, according to industry sources.

Among them, Topco Scientific, which mainly distributes photoresist, silicon wafers and CMP slurry products to foundry houses, has seen its revenues continue ramping up along with the high-capacity utilization rates at foundry houses.

Its revenues rose 11% on month and 12.5% on year to NT$3.49 billion (US$125.64 million) in June, and the January-June revenues expanded 9.7% on year to NT$19.91 billion. Both the June and first-half 2021 revenues were the company's highest records for the same periods.

Chemical material supplier Wahlee Industrial, which sells materials for high-frequency and high-speed substrates and front-end manufacturing materials such as photoresists, CMP slurry and electron-grade chemicals, has been busy fulfilling orders to IC substrate suppliers who have been ramping up their output to meet increasing demand, said the sources.

Wahlee has launched jointly with its upstream suppliers a series of new stepper and high-resolution electroplating dry film products for substrate production and expects the overall supply of substrate products to fall short of demand till 2023.

Wahlee's June revenues came to NT$5.84 billion, up 15.6% on year and the January-June revenues totaled NT$33.15 billion, increasing 21.9% from a year earlier.

Niching Industrial, which distributes packaging materials, including embossed carrier tapes, shipping reels, and chip trays for COG or COF packaging processes, saw its June revenues hike 6% sequentially and 60% on year to a nine-year high of NT$113.79 million.

Its revenues for the first half of 2021 totaled NT$601 million, increasing 40% from a year earlier.

Niching also offers substrate products to produce memory and logic ICs and expects its IC substrate shipments to continue growing quarter by quarter in the second half of 2021.

By DIGITIMES