Walton speeds up adding testing equipment

TAIPEI, TAIWAN: Walton Advanced Engineering (WAE), the memory backend service provider headquartered in Taiwan, has announced that it has been speeding up adding testing equipment and also that it may increase its capex for 2010 since it is running at near-full capacity.

An EETimes report said Walton Advanced Engineering has pointed out that its capex for 2010 at present is NT$3 billion (US $93.62 million). The amount, the company added, will be mainly utilised to buy high-speed testers for DDR3 memory.

Yu Hong-chi, president of Walton Advanced Engineering, said in the press release that the major customers of the company are shifting to 50nm-class processes, and that some of them are planning to conduct pilot runs using 40nm-class processes in the second quarter of 2010.

At present, Walton Advanced Engineering has 60-million-a-month DRAM packaging capacity. The company says it expects to raise this capacity by 10 million-20 million units by the end of 2010.

Yu Hong-chi said Walton Advanced Engineering has plans to add 3 to 5 more sets of high-speed testers for DDR3 chips. Walton currently possesses 10 sets of high-speed testers for DDR3 chips.

According to Yu Hong-chi, DDR3 memory will account for 50 per cent-60 per cent of the overall DRAM shipments of Walton Advanced Engineering in the second quarter of 2010 – up from about 30 per cent in the first quarter. The proportion is likely to reach 80-90 per cent at the end of 2010, the company’s president added.

Walton started making net profits of NT$110 million in the fourth quarter of 2009, from losses amounting to NT$127 million a year before.