HANMI Semiconductor's cumulative revenue from its Micro Saw & Vision Placement (MSVP) systems in the first eight months of this year already exceeded its full-year 2025 figure, the company said on September 30, as Korean back-end equipment displaces Japanese dicing tools in advanced packaging lines.

The company expects MSVP shipments to top 200 units this year, more than double last year's total, and to reach approximately 350 units in 2027. Industry estimates place HANMI Semiconductor first in this equipment segment.

MSVP combines two functions. Micro SAW precisely dices semiconductor packages; Vision Placement then cleans and dries the diced products before inspecting, sorting and loading them. Chipmakers run the system in production of DRAM, NAND flash, high-bandwidth memory (HBM), system semiconductors, printed circuit boards and glass substrates.

A key demand driver is panel-level packaging (PLP). As AI semiconductors grow in performance and physical size, PLP has drawn attention because it packages multiple semiconductors simultaneously on large-area square panels, rather than the conventional circular format. That shift pulls in more dicing and inspection equipment per panel.

From DISCO customer to DISCO competitor

HANMI Semiconductor launched its first-generation Vision Placement equipment in 1998. At the time, the package-dicing SAW machines it paired with came from Japan's DISCO, the dominant supplier in the field. HANMI began developing its own SAW equipment in 2019, after a semiconductor market boom disrupted DISCO's equipment supply and made it difficult for HANMI to secure the volumes it needed consistently.

In 2021 the company developed its own micro SAW brand, becoming the first South Korean company to localize the technology, and integrated it into MSVP. The move ended HANMI's reliance on Japanese-made dicing equipment and created a second product line alongside its TC bonders for HBM stacking, which established the company's position in AI memory supply chains.

"HANMI Semiconductor has demonstrated its competitiveness in semiconductor equipment technology by leading the global market with MSVP, following its TC bonder for HBM," a company official said. "We will establish a U.S. subsidiary called Hanmi USA in October to respond swiftly to local customer demand."

The October launch of Hanmi USA signals where the company expects its next orders to come from. U.S. chipmakers and memory producers are expanding advanced packaging capacity around HBM and large-format substrates, the exact processes MSVP serves.

For DISCO, the development marks the appearance of a credible Korean rival in package dicing, a segment it has effectively owned for decades. For memory makers, a second qualified supplier reduces a single-point dependency in back-end tooling that became visible during the 2019–2020 supply squeeze.

With MSVP unit sales projected to grow from roughly 200 this year to about 350 next year, and a U.S. subsidiary opening this month to support local customers, HANMI Semiconductor is positioning its dicing and inspection line to follow the same export trajectory its HBM TC bonders have already taken.