Amkor Technology
More info
- Creator
- James Kim
- Released
- 1968
- Type
- Semiconductor packaging and test (OSAT)
The company that takes finished slivers of silicon and turns them into something you can solder.
In 1968 James Kim began selling packaging services from his family's Korean factories to American chip companies, and an industry was born: OSAT, outsourced semiconductor assembly and test. Amkor is headquartered in Arizona, but its manufacturing has lived in Asia, mostly Korea, the Philippines and China.
Packaging used to be the dull last step. Advanced packaging changed that: once performance gains come from stacking and stitching together chiplets, the package becomes part of the design. That is why Amkor is building an advanced packaging plant in Arizona with Apple as its first customer – otherwise chips from TSMC's US fab would still have to fly to Asia to be finished.