DIT and SK Hynix sign KRW 20.52 billion agreement

Recently, DIT, a well-known semiconductor and display equipment manufacturer in South Korea, announced that the company has signed an agreement worth 20.52 billion Korean won to supply wafer processing equipment to SK Hynix. According to DIT, the equipment supplied to SK Hynix this time is mainly a laser annealing kit.

DIT was founded in 2005 and was listed on KOSDAQ in 2018. Its main focus is on AI solutions, AOI solutions, laser solutions, and infrared fields.

In 2018, DIT became SK Hynix's first partner. In fact, as early as 2019, DIT collaborated with SK Hynix to develop laser annealing technology. As a result, EO Technics, a well-known laser company in South Korea, has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against DIT, claiming that the technology developed by DIT and SK Hynix infringes on its patented technology. However, as of now, there is no conclusion on this patent dispute case.

After four years of development, DIT signed a contract with SK Hynix in 2023 and began supplying a small amount of laser annealing equipment to SK Hynix in the second half of 2023 for the front-end process of HBM.

By laser annealing the wafer, surface defects are improved and the yield of the production line is increased. Injecting ion dopants into wafers to make them conductive can sometimes result in the inability to synthesize dopants and silicon.

Use laser to irradiate the area where this situation occurs to correct the problem. Laser annealing is less prone to faults like rapid thermal annealing, which can cause wafer bending. Due to the potential application of hybrid bonding in future HBM, it is expected that the demand for laser annealing kits will increase.

In recent years, the proportion of DIT's laser equipment in its revenue has been increasing. In 2022, this business accounted for 5.88% of its total revenue, but the following year this proportion rose to 15.06%, and in the third quarter of 2024 alone, it accounted for 59.46%. It is reported that DIT's revenue for the third quarter of 2024 was 16.5 billion Korean won, with an operating profit of 3.2 billion Korean won.

Source: OFweek