AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -BE Semiconductor Industries (Besi) raised its long-term financial targets on Thursday ahead of its investor day, saying the future is bright for its advanced chip stacking tools.
The Dutch firm makes the world's most accurate hybrid bonding tool, a critical chip technology allowing multiple chips to be bonded directly on top of each other.
"The key message is that the addressable market opportunity increased substantially," said ING analyst Marc Hesselink of Besi's advanced packaging tools.
Shares in the group were up 7.5% as of 0750 GMT, topping the AEX index.
Besi now expects revenue of between 1.5 billion euros and 1.9 billion euros ($1.73 billion-2.19 billion) in the long term, against 1 billion euros forecast earlier, with an operating margin between 40% and 55%, up from 35% to 50%.
The development of artificial intelligence technologies, particularly in data centres, is driving adoption for chip stacking technologies, Besi's CEO Richard W. Blickman said in a statement.
As performance gains from shrinking chip features reach physical limits, chipmakers are looking towards advanced packaging technologies such as hybrid bonding to keep making faster and more powerful chips.
($1 = 0.8685 euros)
(Reporting by Leo Marchandon in Gdansk and Nathan Vifflin in Amsterdam; Editing by Kim Coghill and Jan Harvey)
