Philoptics is showing strong performance. Amid a broad rise in glass substrate-related stocks, the company's track record of developing singulation equipment for glass substrates using pulse lasers appears to be gaining attention.
As of 10 a.m. on the 9th, Philoptics is trading at 26,000 KRW, up 13.54% from the previous day.
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won hinted at the supply of SKC glass substrates to Nvidia at 'CES 2025,' leading to a broad rally in related stocks in the domestic stock market. On the 8th (local time), Chairman Chey visited the SK Group booth at CES 2025. Holding up a model of the SKC glass substrate, he said, "I just sold it." Given that Chairman Chey met Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang before visiting the SK Group booth, it is interpreted that Nvidia has shown interest in glass substrates.
Major semiconductor companies such as Intel, AMD, and Broadcom have started adopting semiconductors using glass substrates since last year. With Nvidia also considering the adoption of glass substrates, expectations are growing that the glass substrate market will rapidly expand.
Philoptics has successfully established itself as a display equipment company by mass-producing the world's first OLED display laser processing standard equipment. The company is expanding its business by supplying equipment such as laser TGV (Through Glass Via) that drills high-quality micro-holes in glass substrates, DI exposure machines that can form semiconductor microcircuit patterns without photomasks, ABF UV drilling equipment integrated with real-time via quality monitoring technology, and laser singulation equipment that individualizes semiconductor wafers into chips to development and mass production lines in the semiconductor packaging market.
The core technology of Philoptics related to glass substrates is singulation equipment. Singulation equipment must cut the glass core with minimal impact. Panel-type pick-and-place requires high technical skills. Philoptics developed singulation equipment for glass substrates using pulse lasers at the request of major customers. If the customer base for singulation equipment expands, the company is expected to emerge as a key equipment provider within the glass substrate supply chain. TGV hole formation equipment is also essential for producing glass substrates.
TGV equipment is regarded as a culmination of Philoptics' laser processing technology and optical design expertise. The TGV equipment drills fine holes in glass substrates to create electrodes. The hole positions and sizes vary depending on the electrode design. Notably, Philoptics can process holes around 10 μm (micrometers) in size. The achievable hole sizes are also diverse. To date, Philoptics is the only laser company worldwide capable of processing micro-holes of various sizes.
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