The Tokyo-based ATE giant hopes the new strategy will jumpstart the company's efforts following a difficult campaign in 2001. After record growth amid the IC boom in 2000, Advantest and other ATE suppliers were hit hard by the chip downturn in 2001. And to add insult to injury, ATE vendors took the rap for soaring test costs in the semiconductor industry.

Advantest itself has experienced some topsy-turvy times. The company reported revenues of 276.5 billion Yen, or US$2.2 billion, in fiscal 2000, which ended March 31, 2001. This compares to 167.1 billion Yen, or US$1.6 billion, in fiscal 1999.

In fiscal 2002, which ends in March of 2002, Advantest projects its sales could fall by 53% over fiscal 2001, according to officials from the company. It will report its sales and earning in April of 2002.

But better days are ahead for the company in 2002. In an address to company employees last week, Toshio Maruyama, president and COO of Advantest in Japan, stressed that 2002 would be a year of "rebirth" for the ATE vendor.

Maruyama outlined some major goals for Advantest in 2002. Among those goals is to start a consultation service for system-on-a-chip (SOC) testing and the development of a common platform in its ATE equipment.

The company also hopes to boost its market share by emphasizing customer-driven marketing. Advantest also plans to conduct more of its research and development outside of Japan in an effort to get closer with its target customers, according to the company.

And, more importantly, the ATE business is projected to improve for the company in 2002, declared Nicholas Konidaris, president and CEO of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Advantest America Corp., the U.S. subsidiary of Advantest.

"I think we will see a small improvement in the ATE industry in 2002 in relation to 2001," Konidaris said. "I think we will see small growth in the first half of 2002. I think we will see an acceleration of growth in the second half," he said in an interview at the Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) here this week.

The Advantest executive believes that most of the ATE growth will come from Asia--not Europe and North America. In 2001, all three regions are beset with a glut of test capacity, analysts noted. "We don't see big growth in North America," he said. "We see growth in Asia, especially Japan and Taiwan."

He also projected an uptick for testers capable of handling high-speed system-on-a-chip (SOC) and mixed-signal IC applications.

Advantest claims to be well-positioned for the possible upturn in 2002--and beyond, but it faces some major hurdles. The company is the world's largest supplier of memory testers, but the DRAM and related markets are declining and consolidating, according to analysts.

The company also hopes to expand its market share in the logic test business, where it is the world's second largest vendor, behind Teradyne Inc., according to analysts.

In response, Advantest has recently rolled out several new products to bolster its memory, logic, and mixed-signal test lines.

Last month, it moved to lower the cost of test by announcing a new dynamic test handler. The system is capable of doubling the throughput of high-end logic and system-on-chip testing by performing tests on up to eight devices simultaneously. The maximum throughput of 6,000 devices per hour is twice the capacity of the system's predecessor, Advantest said (see Dec. 13 story ).

In July of 2001, Advantest rolled out a new high-end tester that is designed to handle the world's fastest and most complex processors, system-on-a-chip (SoC) products, and mixed-signal devices, according to the company. The new T6683 SOC Test System is ideal for production IC testing or high-end characterization (see July 9 story ).