Three wire bonders in Korea became a global packaging network: the history of Amkor
Amkor’s semiconductor lineage began in South Korea in 1968 with ANAM Industrial under Hyang-Soo Kim, while James Kim founded Amkor Electronics in the United States to market and sell semiconductor packaging services.
The early Korean operation started with only a handful of wire and die bonders, performing the assembly work that protects bare semiconductor dies and connects them to external systems.
The important part of this history is the sequence. Each major step gave Amkor Technology another layer of capability, and later products or markets often depended on work that began years earlier.
Korea’s first semiconductor exports left the ANAM factory
ANAM began production and exported packaged semiconductor devices to the United States in 1970.
In semiconductor and electronics markets, this kind of capability compounds over time. Manufacturing know-how, yields, supplier relationships and process experience are difficult to recreate quickly, so each generation can strengthen the next.
The Philippines added international manufacturing scale
Amkor expanded manufacturing into the Philippines, including through acquisition of an AMD semiconductor facility.
In semiconductor and electronics markets, this kind of capability compounds over time. Manufacturing know-how, yields, supplier relationships and process experience are difficult to recreate quickly, so each generation can strengthen the next.
The 1998 Nasdaq listing unified the Amkor identity
Amkor Electronics became publicly traded as Amkor Technology while the group expanded advanced packaging and test operations.
For Amkor Technology, access to public markets was more than a branding milestone. It increased financial transparency and created another route to fund expansion, acquisitions or long-term product development.
Advanced packages replaced the simple wire-bond world
As chips required more connections and higher bandwidth, Amkor expanded into flip-chip, wafer-level, system-in-package and other advanced packaging technologies.
In semiconductor and electronics markets, this kind of capability compounds over time. Manufacturing know-how, yields, supplier relationships and process experience are difficult to recreate quickly, so each generation can strengthen the next.
Arizona brought major advanced-packaging investment back to the United States
Amkor began developing a large US packaging and test facility in Arizona as governments and customers sought more geographically resilient semiconductor supply chains.
The AI era increased the value of capabilities Amkor Technology had already been developing. Compute, data, networking, software or infrastructure that once served narrower workloads became relevant to much larger AI systems.
Why the last steps of chipmaking became strategically important
As of 18 September 2026, amkor is now a major outsourced semiconductor assembly and test provider with manufacturing locations across Asia and the United States.
The distance between “Korea’s first semiconductor exports left the ANAM factory” and “Arizona brought major advanced-packaging investment back to the United States” captures the larger story: Amkor Technology kept extending the value of its original expertise into new products, markets or infrastructure.
For TechnologyBlog.co.za, this page is intended to serve as the company-history cornerstone for future Amkor Technology coverage, so product and company-news articles can link back to one factual brand background instead of repeating the full origin story.
Primary sources reviewed include Amkor Technology’s official company history and leadership biographies. Official company identity cross-checked against https://amkor.com.
