Copper foil maker Co-Tech Development will double down its efforts to expand its offerings of high-frequency and high-speed products for server, networking, automotive and 5G-related applications, according to company president Frank Lee.
As the global economy is facing a number of headwinds such as the war in Ukraine and rising inflation, it is difficult to forecast the prospects for the entire year at this moment, Lee said at the company's latest shareholders meeting.
However, Lee said that Co-Tech is expected to meet demand challenges in the consumer electronics and PC sectors in the second half of the year but is optimistic about further expanding its sales to the server and communications sectors.
Co-Tech is likely to benefit from Intel's planned release of its new server platform, the PCIe Gen5 Eagle Stream, having enjoyed increasing copper foil shipments for server-use CCLs supporting the PCIe Gen4 Whitley platform, Lee noted.
Lee claimed that Co-Tech's copper foil products have been tested and verified for server-use CCLs supporting Intel's new Eagle Stream and AMD's EPYC Genoa CPUs.
Co-Tech will be able to ramp up its share in the server market as the technology barriers to manufacturing PCIe Gen5-enabled CCLs are higher than those for PCIe Gen4.
Lee also noted that sales of HTE (high temperature elongation) copper foils, which contribute a majority share to Co-Tech's total revenue, have suffered some setbacks since the beginning of 2022 due to volatile market conditions.
However, growing demand for its specialized offerings, including high-frequency and high-speed products, FCCL copper foils, and thick copper foils for electric vehicle (EV) chargers, has helped sustain sales.
Company chairman Raymon Soong is also optimistic about the prospects of copper foils, expecting the emerging 5G, AI, IoT edge computing, AR/VR, robotic, autonomous driving and smart-home applications to boost demand for copper foil products.
Soong revealed that Co-Tech plans to invest NT$4.05 billion (US$137.7 million) in building new plants in the coming two years, noting that the company's third plant, which is being built in Yunlin, southern Taiwan, is slated for commercial operations in the first quarter of 2023.
The third plant has a monthly capacity of 900-950 tons, pushing Co-Tech's annual copper foil production capacity to 33,000 tons.
