SEMICS Builds Next-Generation Semiconductor Testing Empire

By Daniel de Bomford, Quentin Lange

A semiconductor test floor can feel like a city built on pressure, with crowded blocks of machinery, tight corridors of time and heat rising in every direction. In that busy landscape, SEMICS wants to be the architect of a new skyline. Its vision is far beyond keeping pace with the industry's shifting demand, as it seeks to design structures that will define the industry’s future.

From the beginning, SEMICS took a path that set it apart from its peers. While many Korean suppliers relied on domestic demand before venturing abroad, SEMICS moved in the opposite direction. “We began our journey internationally,” says Shoun Yu, Ph.D., president and founder. “We’re more welcomed abroad, and the scale we operate at overseas is significantly larger.”

That unconventional starting point shaped a company culture built around originality, rather than imitation. Yu explains that many local firms attempted to mirror established foreign machines and compete on price. “That’s not a strong marketing strategy,” he says. “We’ve been training in B2B marketing for over 20 years, and we understand that kind of messaging doesn’t resonate.”

President Shoun Yu of SEMICS

Responding to Today’s Semiconductor Pressures

The global semiconductor landscape is being built in real time. New factories in the West, surging AI and HPC workloads and process technologies approaching 2nm have reshaped the demands placed on wafer testing. These changes push test systems into territory that traditional probers were never designed to handle.

Yu describes three forces reshaping the field. First, space: “Testing setups require enormous physical space, which is increasingly difficult to accommodate,” he says. Some experts even suggest that test floors could outgrow the wafer labs themselves.

Second, mechanical force: modern chips require probe cards that can withstand extreme loads. “Current setups must endure forces like 350kg, with precision tolerances of 150 microns. That’s not sustainable,” Yu says.

Third, heat: AI and HPC devices generate intense thermal loads during testing, and efficient dissipation has become the defining challenge.

These constraints became SEMICS’ blueprint for a different direction. “We tackled all three of these issues head-on,” Yu says. “Our technology in thermal dissipation is now the best in the industry.”

OPERA: The Machine That Redefined Probing

SEMICS’ answer to these pressures came in 2021 with the debut of OPERA, the company’s flagship group prober and a centerpiece of its “Greatest Test Empire” vision.

The machine’s breakthrough lies in a mechanism Yu calls “the mother technology”: chuck tilting. Traditional probers rely on motor-driven tilting systems, and those motors make compact stacking impossible. SEMICS removed that limitation. Without the need for bulky motors, SEMICS could stack multiple probe units vertically, creating a radically more compact testing structure. The design solves all three of the industry’s core challenges. Stacked units multiply capacity without expanding the floor footprint. The system supports heavy probing loads and integrates the company’s advanced thermal-dissipation technology.

Long before OPERA reached the market, SEMICS introduced the concept at an industry conference in California. Yu recalls giving the presentation despite his concerns about his English fluency. “Despite my imperfect English, I won the Most Inspirational Presentation Award,” he says.

SEMICS’ Group Prober: OPERA

Innovation in Maintenance: The Modular Cell Concept

As OPERA grew more complex, SEMICS focused on making the machine easier to maintain. The company’s CTO developed a cell-based modular system that allows the maintenance teams to slide out individual units like drawers. Yu sees this simplicity as transformative. “I often say it’s the biggest invention in our company’s history, even more important than the wheel,” he says.

Building the Great Test Empire

SEMICS is shaping a testing ecosystem that reaches beyond probers, Yu’s “Great Test Empire.” The strategy is built on unified technologies, such as testers, probe cards and laser dicing. OPERA 2 extends that approach to logic and HPC, where flexible compact systems are essential. The company also sees die-level testing as the next frontier, driven by thermal demands and hybrid bonding requirements. Its acquisition of advanced dicing technology supports that shift.

With new bases in Germany, Japan and the United States, SEMICS is reinforcing its global reach. Yu believes adoption of group probing is inevitable and expects the company’s full vision to take shape soon. “By 2030, I believe GTE, the Greatest Test Empire, will no longer be just a vision,” he says. “It will be a reality.”

To hear more from President Shoun Yu of SEMICS, check out this interview with him.