(PRWEB) July 08, 2014
The 300mm second-hand equipment market began as a result of Memory Fab closures in the US, Europe and Taiwan. The first large closure occurred during 2008 with Texas Instruments purchasing the largest quantity of tools in 2009 with substantial capex savings. They have slowly over a period of 5 years installed these systems into their existing 300mm manufacturing facilities. Texas Instruments continues to have interest in the second-hand equipment market and late last year they purchased additional second hand systems released from Powerchip.
Now, as facilities that have been running on 300mm platforms for years are retooling with new process and design shrinks, process tools that no longer meet their needs will also become available. Bruce Kim, CEO of SurplusGLOBAL, a global leader of secondary semiconductor equipment predicts that, “During 2014, we expect to see at least 1000 available tools hitting the market due to M&A’s and technology upgrades in worldwide 300mm Fabs.”
As mentioned previously, Powerchip released and sold almost 1,000 300mm process tools. They sold these systems to over 15 companies worldwide. Companies like Powerchip typically wish to liquidate these assets quickly and in large package transactions. Unlike a large IDM, many manufacturers do not have the desire to purchase in bulk because they have specific process equipment requirements. Bruce Kim says, “This is where SurplusGLOBAL fills a need in the market place. We are able to execute quickly by making offers on bulk tools, holding them in inventory and then offering them to the marketplace on a tool by tool basis.”
SurplusGLOBAL has also started to see an increase in 3rd party refurbishers offering a variety of services and it is predicted that timely investment in second-hand equipment will be a strategic way to reduce cost and increase competitiveness. An opportunity also exists for OEMs to embrace this market and substantially increase their service revenue. While China, Taiwan and Singapore fabs are starting to be more active in this market, Korean fabs are lagging. Even if these companies were to spend only 10% of their annual capex budget on secondary equipment their savings would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Contact information:
Emerald Greig:
Phone: 480-225-3619 (SEMICON West July 8-10, SurplusGLOBAL Booth #629, South Hall, Moscone Center, San Francisco)
E-mail: Sales(at)surplusglobal(dot)com