Cohu, Inc. (COHU) Message Board

Sponsor

To: B Hewson who wrote (295)	8/9/1997 8:26:00 AM
From: Hanry A Hill	of 5426

COHU is one of three significant companies supplying equipment to semiconductor manufacturers for final electronic testing of packaged integrated circuits immediately prior to shipment. The machine that does this is called an automated test handler. The other two companies are Aseco (ASEC) and Aetrium (ATRM). COHU has about 2/3 of the market. It is hard to keep up with the technology but Cohu appears to be main supplier of Intel Motorolla, Micron and many pacific rim companies while Aseco is working closely with IBM in the testing of their new VT8000 handler which was on open display at Semicon/West and advertised as meeting all requirements imposed by IBM for reliability,quality & throughput. COHU's newest handler is supposed to have a relatively small footprint and an impressively high output and apparently meets their customers needs. The company is secretive about their products and even their customer base but last year's earnings slowdown appeared to be a result of push-outs (delays) by Micron & Motorola in some of their fabrication plants & those companys reportedly account for about 17% of Cohu's test handling business.