[Featured Stock] Protek Highlights 100x Post-Process Productivity Amid Persistent Semiconductor Supply Shortage

[Asia Economy Reporter Minwoo Lee] Protek's stock price is on the rise. Amid expectations that the semiconductor shortage will persist, news of the development of a technology that increases semiconductor back-end (packaging) productivity by more than 100 times has gained attention.

As of 10:42 AM on the 19th, Protek's stock price recorded 31,500 KRW, up 7.50% compared to the previous day. The semiconductor shortage, which began in the automotive sector, has spread through smartphones to TVs, home appliances, PCs, and the entire IT industry, and the news that Protek possesses technology to improve productivity appears to have acted as a positive factor.

Recently, the Korea Institute of Machinery & Materials announced that on the previous day, Vice Director Junyeop Song and Chief Researcher Jaehak Lee's advanced production equipment research team, together with the domestic company Protek, developed core equipment technology that can increase semiconductor back-end productivity by more than 100 times. The manufacturing technology for efficiently assembling semiconductor chips is called 'Gangbonder,' but there are no commercially available cases worldwide yet. However, this research team succeeded in completing equipment that uses Gangbonder technology to arrange flexible semiconductor chips thinner than a human hair, with a thickness of 0.02 millimeters (mm), on a substrate without damage, and stack them within an error range of 0.002 mm.

Meanwhile, the semiconductor shortage continues across the industry. Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are reportedly producing 10-20% fewer TVs and home appliances than planned due to difficulties in procuring display driver ICs (DDI) and power management ICs (PMIC). U.S. Hewlett-Packard (HP) is also facing supply disruptions for educational computers due to semiconductor shortages. Chinese home appliance company Robam delayed the launch of a new oven product by four months.