Taiwan-based IC packager ChipMOS is expected to see its revenue growth significantly driven by the combination of its gold bumping with COF packaging services in 2018, as the company has obtained orders from four new customers, including IC designers in the US, Taiwan, and South Korea, according to industry sources.

ChipMOS has maintained partnership with Samsung Electronics for four years with its 12-inch gold bumping process, the sources said. This year, the company has landed orders from four new clients for packaging driver ICs for OLED panels, with the packaging requiring the combination of gold bumping and COP (chip on film) or COG (chip on glass) process, the sources said.

ChipMOS and other peers including Chipbond Technology are optimistic about the prospect for the OLED driver IC packaging and testing market, as China panel makers are stepping up the development of OLED panels, constituting good business opportunities for Taiwan IC back-end services providers especially after the market becomes more mature in 2019.

The sources said that driver ICs for smartphones are also shifting to COF packaging from COG in line with those for large-size LCD TV, enabling ChipMOS to maintain its average COF packaging capacity utilization rate at over 85% since the second half of 2017.

In addition, ChipMOS is also expected to garner orders from new customers in the memory fields of NOR flash and NAND flash. The company's packaging capacity for such memory chips are running at full capacity, inspiring the company to consider a capacity expansion plan in 2018, the sources indicated.