Cirtek Holdings finalizes venture with Sony

Laguna-based semiconductor manufacturer Cirtek Holdings Philippines Corp. and Sony LSI Design Inc. have finalized a joint business plan for the rollout of test boards for various consumer and industrial electronic goods and applications.

In an interview with the Inquirer after his recent trip to Japan to finalize the plan, Cirtek chief finance officer Anthony Buyawe said that the project with Sony would kick off this October and likely yield $1 million in revenues by the end of 2012. During the first full year of operations in 2013, he estimated revenues to reach $22 million, resulting in a net income of $6 million to be split between Cirtek and Sony LSI.

During the first phase of the project that will begin this month, Cirtek will provide marketing and sales support to Sony LSI. In the second phase set sometime next year, part of the assembly will be transferred to Cirtek. As a result, Cirtek will have to build a dedicated line by 2014.

Also, Sony LSI will outsource to Cirtek its complete test board supply chain flow—from raw materials procurement, manufacturing, warehousing and sales to marketing business activities.

“The partnership with Sony LSI presents an exceptional and exciting opportunity for Cirtek to work with a truly global company and iconic brand. The partnership gives Cirtek access to an entirely new set of customers, as well as entry into the design and manufacture of high-value test boards, which are used in the testing of various electronic products, components and applications,” Buyawe said.

“Sony LSI, on the other hand, will benefit from Cirtek’s high-quality assembly capability at very competitive price points. We expect the joint venture to be a major driver of business growth for both Sony LSI and Cirtek,” Buyawe added.

The test boards will be delivered by Cirtek to various customers in Japan, Taiwan and the United States, which will use them to perform high-speed parallel testing to mass-produce electronic goods.

Fully assembled test boards contain various integrated semiconductor product types such as microcontrollers, integrated circuits, capacitors, high-speed, low-pitch, high-pin count input/output sockets, sub-boards, modules and other active and passive semiconductor devices that require highly specialized and precision manufacturing.

They are thus high-valued items produced as a result of years of research and development.

Sony LSI test boards, which will be outsourced to Cirtek, are used in a number of high-end applications such:

— Product testing of image sensors converting light into electronic signals used in digital cameras and camera modules found in smartphones and notebook computers;

— Logic testing of memory and DDR SDRAM chips found in motherboards, solid-state storage, server farms, tablet computers, smartphones, portable hard disks, and USB sticks and memory cards; and

— Testing of products used to synchronize radio signals emitted by microwave repeaters found in satellite control systems, cellular network systems and digital logic clock timing of microprocessors.