SemiFive hits record order backlog of W245.5b on surging global ASIC demand

SemiFive, a specialist in AI-customized semiconductors (ASICs), announced Friday that it has posted a record order backlog, driven by rapidly growing global demand for ASIC solutions.

The company said new orders in the third quarter reached 178.4 billion won ($134 million) on a consolidated basis, a 437 percent jump from 33.2 billion won in the same period last year.

As global ASIC demand expanded and the company pushed deeper into major markets including North America and Japan, SemiFive secured new orders in a single quarter that were 1.5 times the 118.9 billion won it had accumulated in the first half of the year.

As a result, the order backlog as of the end of the third quarter reached 245.5 billion won, a new all-time high.

Cumulative sales through the third quarter rose to 146.1 billion won, up 62 percent from 89.8 billion won in the same period last year. The operating loss through the third quarter narrowed to 20.6 billion won, compared with 35.3 billion won a year earlier.

Orders grew across all business segments — development, mass production and IP (intellectual property). ASIC development orders in particular led overall growth, posting the sharpest increase.

The ASIC development segment has been expanding on the back of high-margin, leading-edge turnkey projects. Third-quarter orders for the segment reached 136.9 billion won, accounting for the bulk of the company's total new orders.

Securing a large-scale high-performance computing (HPC) project in North America helped SemiFive establish itself as a leading-edge turnkey solution provider for major global customers. The company said its technical maturity and mass-production experience in 4-nanometer processes served as key competitive advantages.

In the mass-production segment, purchase orders have been coming in consistently while the product portfolio is being diversified and upgraded. The mix has shifted away from smaller domestic chips toward AI devices and AI HPC chips built on leading-edge processes.

Stable shipments backed by exclusive mask production rights, combined with an expanding AI mass-production portfolio, are expected to contribute to earnings growth starting next year.

The IP segment has maintained steady growth through a recurring-revenue model in which customer-specific IP that has completed silicon verification is supplied to other customers in off-the-shelf form.

SemiFive is also broadening its business into 2-nanometer and 3-nanometer cutting-edge processes and HPC applications. By expanding its IP lineup based on Samsung foundry's 2nm and 3nm processes, the company aims to capture additional orders in the high-performance AI semiconductor market.

"These results prove that we have entered a phase of full-scale growth acceleration in the global AI ASIC market," SemiFive Chief Executive Jo Myung-hyun said. "We will push our growth rate even higher, powered by a record order backlog and a high-value mass-production pipeline as our twin turbo engines."