"Testing," a back-end semiconductor process, is drawing attention as the next bottleneck in the artificial intelligence (AI) chip ecosystem. As AI chip manufacturing processes grow more sophisticated and yield optimization becomes more critical amid limited production capacity, testing equipment that screens out defects in advance is commanding higher value. Nimble investors are already pouring money into major back-end processing companies in Japan, a materials, parts and equipment powerhouse, reshaping their portfolios.
According to the financial investment industry on the 27th, Nomura Securities identified advanced semiconductor testing as a key stock market theme for the second half in an in-depth analysis report titled "Chip Upgrade, Testing Is Coming" released on the 24th. "As chip structures grow more complex with the adoption of advanced packaging, the economic cost incurred when a process fails has increased significantly," Nomura said. "The testing process that defends yields and prevents defects has evolved into one of the most important value-added processes within the AI hardware supply chain."
Indeed, as chips become more advanced, the time and cost required for testing are surging. Nomura projected that final test time for Nvidia's current-generation Blackwell has increased fourfold compared with the previous-generation Hopper (H100), and that the next-generation Rubin will see a sevenfold increase. Accordingly, testing's share of graphics processing unit (GPU) manufacturing costs is also rising, from the existing 1.9% to 2.5% and 3.3%. This structure sees GPU prices rise with each generation while testing's added value climbs even more steeply. On this basis, Nomura issued buy ratings on major Taiwanese testing companies including ASE, Hon Precision and Chroma.
Korean investors are heading toward Japan, a materials, parts and equipment powerhouse that offers relatively greater investment convenience than Taiwan. According to the Korea Securities Depository's Seibro system, the top net buy among Japanese stocks by individual investors investing in the Japanese market over the past month (June 25 to July 24) was Advantest, the world's No. 1 semiconductor test equipment company. During this period, net buying of Advantest reached 7.76 million dollars (about 11.3 billion won), surpassing the 7.32 million dollars (10.7 billion won) for Kioxia, Japan's leading NAND flash company. Japan Electronic Materials Corporation (JEM), which produces essential testing components such as probe cards, ranked sixth in net buying at 2.89 million dollars (4.2 billion won), while Arisawa Manufacturing, which handles flexible printed circuit boards (FPCB) and semiconductor inspection materials, ranked seventh at 2.82 million dollars (4.1 billion won).
"The ecosystem that not only designs and manufactures chips but also makes them actually work is being cited as the next beneficiary of the AI rally," a securities industry official said. "Although share prices of domestic back-end processing companies have shown a sluggish trend due to the recent slump in the KOSDAQ market, there is room for the warmth to spread to related domestic materials, parts and equipment stocks when the mood shifts."
