UNITES Systems is a company founded in 1991 in the Czech Republic. The company’s main focus is to design & manufacture testers for electronics and semiconductors. They have 80 employees and half of them work in R&D.
Interview with Ondrej Betak, Member of the Board / Sales Director at UNITES Systems a.s.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
Ondrej Betak: Our portfolio covers production testers for semiconductors, especially discrete semiconductors like MOSFETs, Diodes, BJTs, IGBTs, etc. and production testers for assembled PCBs, electronic modules and units. Besides production, we also offer laboratory mixed-signal semiconductor testers mostly for Space and Defense applications.
E.E: What’s the news about new products/services?
O.B: Since few years ago we have been seeing growing demand for new wide band-gap semiconductors like SiC and GaN which allow faster transition towards clean energy. In 2022 we introduced Effitest Power platform which is targeting Power semiconductors focusing specifically on SiC and GaN which are both the core elements for such transition.
E.E: What are the ranges of products/services?
O.B: We offer complex solution which starts from delivery of the product – tester to subsequent service and maintenance for whole lifetime of the tester.
E.E: What is the state of the market where you are currently active?
O.B: The semiconductor market currently experienced a downturn which has lasted since Q2/2023 and throughout 2024 is expected to slowly recover.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
O.B: The long-term market trend for Power electronics, which is a significant part of discrete semiconductor market, is expected to steadily increase over the next decade. The main reason is growing demand for electric vehicles and also the transition to the clean energy. The power electronics is essentially the heart of all of these new clean technologies.
E.E: What are the most innovative products/services marketed?
O.B: Definitely the new Effitest Power series which is targeting new power semiconductors based on WBG (Wide Band-Gap) semiconductor technology – SiC and GaN.
E.E: What estimations do you have for the beginning of 2024?
O.B: Year 2024 will probably mean a slow revival of growth in the semiconductor market. Past year was highly affected by excess stock inventory of semiconductor distributors which is a consequence of pre-supply during the “Covid years”. However, this surplus stock is slowly depleting and we can see higher demand for new generations of semiconductors, either lower nm in digital semiconductor industry (like memories, processors) or higher power semiconductors especially for switching applications. This combination will probably balance out the drop over last year and exceed the last peak for semiconductor demand which was in 2022.