Unisem Brand Guidelines: The 1989 Ipoh Chip Packager and Its 2018 Huatian Partnership

A packaging plant on the edge of Ipoh.

Unisem’s own history begins in June 1989, when it was incorporated in Malaysia as a private limited company. Building work on its first factory started in September 1991, and the Phase I building, of about 130,000 square feet, was finished in March 1992. In July 1992 the company began mass production of semiconductor packages with about 300 employees, according to the timeline on its website. A company release of March 2022 places that first plant at Simpang Pulai, Ipoh, in the state of Perak.

The early years were spent adding steps to the line. Unisem says it began making fine-pitch QSOP packages in June 1993, set up final test operations the following month in about 3,000 square feet, added tape-and-reel packing in 1994 and began drop-shipping finished parts to customers in 1996. A second factory building was completed in August 1996 and a third, with about 330,000 square feet more, in September 2000.

The company went public in stages. It converted into a public limited company in June 1997 and was listed on the Main Board of the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, now Bursa Malaysia, in July 1998. Its registered name is Unisem (M) Berhad, and the group says it is headquartered in Kuala Lumpur while its factories stand elsewhere. Its press releases of 2019 and 2022 name John Chia Sin Tet as chairman and group managing director.

Packages, bumps and test.

Unisem describes itself as a provider of semiconductor assembly and test services for electronics companies. Its list covers wafer bumping, wafer probing and grinding, a range of leadframe and substrate packages, wafer-level chip-scale packages, and RF, analog, digital and mixed-signal test, with failure analysis and thermal characterisation offered as turnkey services. The company says it launched its small leadless packages, sold as SLP, in January 2002; its current catalogue also lists MIS packages, stacked-die designs, MEMS packaging and system-in-package modules.

The group grew by building and by buying. Its timeline records the purchase of Atlantic Technology Holdings (UK) Limited, now Unisem (Europe) Holdings, in June 2004, and of Advanced Interconnect Technologies Limited, now Unisem (Mauritius) Holdings, in July 2007. A joint venture formed in September 2004 became Unisem Advanced Technologies (UAT), formerly Unisem-Advanpack Technologies. Unisem says UAT began operating in 2006, calls it one of the first independent wafer-bumping service providers in Malaysia, and says it offers gold, solder and copper-pillar bumping. In June 2008 UAT signed a licence agreement with FlipChip International, which became a shareholder.

China came next. Unisem incorporated Unisem Chengdu in Sichuan in December 2004. Its timeline says the phase-one factory opened in October 2006, while its Chengdu page says mass production began in July 2006. The company says Chengdu added MEMS production in 2010, system-in-package modules and flip-chip LGA in 2011, wafer bumping at the end of 2011 and wafer-level packaging in January 2013.

In January 2019 Unisem listed factories in Ipoh, Chengdu and Batam, Indonesia; its March 2022 release names production facilities in Ipoh and Chengdu. The company’s timeline also records a change of corporate logo in November 2005.

Packaging and test.

Chip packaging and test companies sit between the chipmaker and the finished device. The trade calls them OSATs, for outsourced semiconductor assembly and test: they take silicon made by others, mount it, connect it, seal it and check that it works. Their customers are other technology companies, so they rarely speak to the public, and their imagery is built for engineers, buyers and investors.

That imagery leans on close-ups. Company pages and annual reports return again and again to macro shots of packaged chips and the substrates beneath them, to fine arcs of gold or copper wire bonds linking a die to its frame, and to wafers catching the light. Methods carry the names that a consumer brand would give to products: flip chip, fan-out, system in package, 2.5D and chiplet packaging.

The second register is the factory. Rows of test handlers, operators in white cleanroom suits, and long, low factory campuses in places such as Kaohsiung, Penang and Jiangsu stand for scale and reliability. Plants are often known by codes and numbers rather than names, and maps of sites across Asia, Europe and the Americas do much of the storytelling. Trade shows such as SEMICON are where these companies meet their customers face to face.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each company — who founded it, who owns it, where it works and what its record shows — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word. The palettes and type here are our own interpretation, not the companies’ marks.

A family stake, a Chinese partner and a new plant in Gopeng.

The biggest change in ownership came in 2018. On 12 September 2018, The Star reported that John Chia, Alexander Chia Jhet-Wern and two related companies, together Unisem’s single largest shareholder with a 24.28% stake, had joined Huatian Electronics Group (HK) and Huatian Technology (Malaysia) in a voluntary take-over offer for the shares they did not hold. The paper said the Chia side and Tianshui Huatian Technology had signed a collaboration agreement that day to form a strategic partnership for expanding Unisem’s business, that Huatian Technology (Malaysia) would become the single largest shareholder on completion, and that the offerors intended to keep Unisem listed.

Unisem announced on 17 January 2019 that the offer had been completed. Huatian Technology (Malaysia) had received valid acceptances for about 58.94% of the issued shares, the release said, and because the free float had fallen below Bursa Malaysia’s 25% requirement, Tianshui Huatian would sell shares to restore it. Unisem’s release describes Tianshui Huatian as a company incorporated in China in December 2003 and listed in Shenzhen.

The Malaysian base then grew. On 22 March 2022 Unisem broke ground on a plant on about 28.5 acres at Gopeng, Perak, with a first phase of about 57,000 square metres including cleanrooms; the company said it would double the capacity of its Ipoh operations, The Edge reported the same day. In September 2026 The Star, citing CIMB Research, described Gopeng’s first phase as operating and said construction of a second phase, aimed at wafer bumping, probing and wafer-level packaging, was expected to start in the fourth quarter of the financial year; at the time of writing that phase had not been built. Unisem’s website gives a workforce of about 7,000.

For a design guide, Unisem shows how a Malaysian contract manufacturer presents a long record of plants and process steps under one plain name. Compare Carsem, another packager with roots in Ipoh, and Amkor. For this guide we use graphite, silver and a lacquer red with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Unisem’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.