23 November 2010

GaAs epi foundry VPEC sees rebound

Gallium arsenide (GaAs) epiwafer foundry Visual Photonics Epitaxy Company (VPEC) of Ping-Jen City, Taoyuan, Taiwan says that, after a four-month streak of declines, its revenue rebounded to NT$176m (US$5.8m) in October, up 5.2% year-on-year and up 21.4% on September (which had suffered due to inventory adjustment by clients).

Order visibility has grown to about three months, VPEC adds. In particular, sales for November are likely to stay at a high level, with shipments being driven by sustained demand for power amplifiers (PAs) from the smartphone sector.

HBT wafers for the production of PAs still contribute most of VPEC's revenues. But in addition, the firm has begun supplying wafers made using a BiHEMT process — which combines the advantages of both HBT (heterojunction bipolar transistor) and pHEMT (pseudomorphic high-electron-mobility transistor) technologies for products with complex circuit designs — to a GaAs device vendor since mid-2010.

For fourth-quarter 2010, revenue is expected to grow 20% sequentially, with gross margin rebounding to more than 38% (comparable with Q2's 38.2%).

See related items:

VPEC to see record revenue in July due to new orders from Skyworks

Tags: VPEC GaAs

Visit: www.vpec.com.tw

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