WILLOW GROVE, Pa.--Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc. today announced an agreement to acquire Probe Technology Corp. of Santa Clara, Calif., a 25-year-old supplier of probe cards for semiconductor testing. The privately-held company will be purchased for about $65 million in cash, under the agreement.
K&S, the world's largest supplier of chip-assembly and -packaging equipment, said it is making the acquisition to further expand its portfolio in wafer probe and testing. Last month, K&S announced a similar move to acquire Cerprobe Corp. of Gilbert, Ariz., for $225 million in cash (see Oct. 12 story).
"The acquisition of Probe Technology Corp. is another step forward in our strategy to offer the most complete, capable and cost-effective interconnect solutions," said C. Scott Kulicke, chairman and chief executive officer of K&S. "Test clearly is an enabling technology for our customers. This acquisition, combined with the previously announced tender for Cerprobe Corp., will provide a strong base for implementation of our strategy.
In recent years, Kulicke has expressed a desire to take a "total solutions" approach to semiconductor backend manufacturing steps, similar to what Applied Materials Inc. has done in the frontend wafer processing. Kulicke has also hinted of a broader move into the wafer probe and chip testing solutions.
"Probe Technologies' probe cards already offer pad pitch capability that parallels that of our industry leading 8028-PPS ball bonder, and we will work together to develop finer-pitch products that will meet or exceed the capabilities of our next-generation ball bonder platform," Kulicke said. "Probe Technology also manufactures cards specifically designed for probing high-density flip-chip die, such as those produced by Flip Chip Technologies, LLC, K&S's bumping services joint venture," he added.
Formed in 1975, Probe Technology produces a range of epoxy based probe cards with contact counts up to 1,500 and pitches down to 50 microns. The company also offers advanced vertical array probe cards for flip-chip devices with probe counts up to 3,500.
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