Strategic move bolsters company's rapid growth in SoC ATE
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Advantest Corporation (TSE:6857)(NYSE:ATE), the leading global supplier of semiconductor test equipment, is creating a research and development center in Santa Clara, California to accelerate product development for the company's Openstar(TM)-compliant T2000 open architecture System-on-Chip (SoC) test platform.
A global company, Advantest is leveraging its worldwide capabilities to better meet the needs of SoC customers, who are largely based in the United States. Long established in the No. 1 market positions in memory test and device handlers, Advantest has experienced steady market gains in the SoC test sector. Growing at more than 100 percent a year, the company's revenues from SoC tester sales outpaced the overall growth of the SoC tester market in the past two years. Advantest is now the second largest ATE supplier to the SoC market.
Systems-on-Chip devices have become a dominant issue in the semiconductor industry, driven by the rapid growth of the Internet, communications technologies, and consumer electronics. These markets, which now supersede business applications as the largest source of revenue for the semiconductor industry, create challenges in design, manufacturing and test related to chip integrity and reliability, more complex chip designs, more condensed time-to-market cycles, and pricing pressures. Advantest's T2000 is a highly scalable, open, flexible test platform aimed at reducing the cost of test of SoC devices and other advanced ICs that incorporate complex technologies for sub-100nm device geometries and 300mm wafers.
Keith Lee, president and CEO of Advantest America, says, "Advantest's new U.S. R&D center is strategically critical to extending our success and our customers' success in the SoC market. Only an ATE company with capabilities such as Advantest's -- truly global resources, the willingness to collaborate with customers, and strong engineering talent and manufacturing resources -- could mount an effort such as this." The new R&D center will work closely with U.S. customers to design and develop prototypes that will be produced in volume at Advantest's state-of-the-art, high quality manufacturing facilities in Gunma, Japan. Advantest's Gunma facility is highly acclaimed for its reliable, quality-assured manufacturing capabilities.
Lee comments, "U.S.-based development of new SoC test products allows us to work closely with customers, who, in this market segment, have diverse needs based on diverse IC technologies. Also, our geographic proximity to customers will allow us to bring new products to market more quickly. At the same time, manufacturing the products at our state of the art production facilities in Japan assures customers that we will deliver the high quality and reliability that they have come to expect from Advantest and will allow us to scale volume deliveries to our customers time-to-market needs cost effectively." Of great strategic importance to the success of the R&D center is a joint U.S.-Japan initiative within Advantest that calls for the use of exactly the same design tools and processes in both countries. Through shared, thoroughly documented specifications exact matches will be maintained throughout the development and manufacturing processes.
Mr. Lee further stated, "This effort doesn't duplicate, but is complementary to, existing development of modules for Advantest's T2000 Open Architecture SoC test platform. Advantest will be in a position to more quickly deliver additional high quality products to the customer base in the future." The center, which has a core staff in place, is looking to double its staff in the near term, with additional hiring of senior ATE engineers planned in 2006.
About Advantest Advantest Corporation is the world's largest supplier of automatic test equipment to the semiconductor industry. Advantest's SoC, logic, memory, mixed-signal and RF testers and device handlers are integrated into the most advanced semiconductor fabrication lines in the world. Founded in Tokyo in 1954, Advantest established its North American subsidiary in 1982 and its European subsidiary in 1984. More information is available at http://www.advantest.com/. DATASOURCE: Advantest America, Inc.
CONTACT: Amy Gold, Advantest America, Inc., +1-212-850-6670, ; or Barbara Palmer, Palmer Communications, +1-914-725-8057, , for Advantest America, Inc.
Web site: http://www.advantest.com/
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