Progress first half 2007 – Letter from CEO
Silex Microsystems, July 30, 2007
The first half of 2007 has proven to be another outstanding period for Silex Microsystems. Although our primary focus was investing for future growth, we still achieved positive earnings. Sale has grown by 68% to $10.7 million with a 7% Operating Profit (EBIT). This gives us a strong position in the industry and the resources to invest in further improvements and expanded capacity.
While I am very pleased with our growth and financial performance in the last 6 months, I am even more proud of the discipline and creativity with which we have executed our business plan. Most importantly the seeds planted in the past are now starting to bear fruit. We continued to migrate development projects to production effectively and with profit. More than 50% of the revenue now comes from regular production. We also managed to successfully secure development projects as well as new customers, which will guarantee our continuous growth.
The MEMS industry continues to grow and mature as new consumer applications are driving the volumes. MEMS microphones are only one example, already widely used in mobile telephones and one of the fastest growing devices in MEMS. The trend to outsource MEMS is escalating. For example, the majority of the MEMS companies, established in the last 4 years are describing themselves as “Fab-less”, which usually means little or no investment in manufacturing and, or engineering. MEMS foundry services will play an increasingly important roll as the MEMS industry becomes more reliant on outsourced manufacturing. Silex maintains a central position in this MEMS foundry segment and is ranked top 5 MEMS foundry in the world by WTC.
Silex’s will continue to focus on new emerging markets, as consumer electronics, biotech and telecom, where consumer applications is the dominating segment. The key MEMS geographies for Silex are USA and Europe and we see Asia, primarily Japan, China and Taiwan, as areas of rising interest. In response to the increased business opportunities on the west coast of USA, Silex opened a new US sales office in San Francisco. Silex also strengthened its US sales team with an area sales manager, based in Boston.
Following the trend of the IC foundries, Silex is continuously working on proprietary MEMS foundry processes leveraging on intellectual properties and know-how to complement the foundry offering. One such example is the high density feed through via technology (TSV technology), which enables true wafer-level packing and designs with significantly reduced form factors in MEMS. This technology has been especially successful and is used by several foundry customers. With the swift propagation of this TSV technology, Silex is poised to make this process a standard in the MEMS industry.
With a priority on discipline and a continued focus on execution of our business plan, we are excited about Silex’s future. Our customer portfolio and financial status has never been stronger. Our manufacturing facility is one of the most advanced in the business. Our team, which continues to improve, is committed to the success of our customers. We are greatly appreciative of the support our customers have shown us and we will do our best to retain that confidence and support by continue to deliver superior services.
Jan Nerdal
Chief Executive Officer
