Deep Intelligence Across Industries

Super Micro Computer, Inc. — SEMI

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation — SEMI

Daishinku Corp. — SEMI

ITT Interconnect Solutions — SEMI

Hach Company — SEMI

Darbond Technology is China's leading domestically owned platform supplier of high-end electronic packaging materials — engineered adhesives, functional films and thermal interface materials (TIMs) that bond, protect, insulate and cool components from the wafer level (level 0) through chip, board and module to complete systems (level 3). Its portfolio of more than 400 products spans four end-markets: integrated-circuit (IC) packaging, smart-terminal (consumer electronics) packaging, new-energy (EV power batteries and photovoltaics) and high-end equipment. New-energy adhesives remain the revenue anchor at roughly 52% of sales, but the strategic thrust is IC packaging: wafer UV tapes, die-attach pastes and films, underfill, lid-attach adhesives and chip-level TIMs that substitute for products from Henkel, Shin-Etsu, H.B. Fuller and Japanese film makers. Backed since before its IPO by China's Big Fund and selling to Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, CATL, JCET, Tongfu and Huatian, Darbond grew revenue from CNY 584 million in FY2021 to CNY 1,547 million in FY2025, and is accelerating in 2026 on AI-server thermal materials and advanced-packaging import substitution. **What the company does.** Darbond formulates, manufactures and sells electronic-grade adhesives and functional film materials. In its own description (FY2025 annual report and 2025–2026 investor-relations records), the company is "led by IC packaging materials technology" and focuses on four application fields — IC packaging, smart-terminal packaging, new-energy applications and high-end equipment applications — with a product line running from level-0 to level-3 packaging and serving head customers in each industry. Its main products are electronic-grade adhesives and functional films; the IC segment's catalogue covers thermal products (pads, gels, phase-change materials, liquid metal), die-attach products (die-attach paste DAP; DAF and conductive CDAF films), wafer-processing films (UV back-grinding and UV dicing tapes), underfill and lid-frame adhesives. **Business model.** Darbond is a pure product company. Revenue is earned almost entirely from the sale of formulated materials; there is no material service, subscription or licensing income. Sales are executed both directly (to battery makers, OSATs, handset/EMS manufacturers and automotive OEMs) and through distributors and sales-service agents, a channel the exchange scrutinised during the IPO review. Revenue is recognised on delivery and acceptance; pricing is negotiated per qualified part number, typically with annual price-downs in high-volume new-energy programmes. **Revenue model mix (FY2025).** **Product sales (adhesives, films, TIMs):** Share of revenue: ~100%; Comment: Core operating revenue CNY 1,545.45 M of CNY 1,547.23 M total revenue (FY2025 annual report) **Services / licensing / subscription:** Share of revenue: Negligible; Comment: Technical application support is bundled into product pricing **Value-chain position.** Darbond sits between upstream chemical feedstocks (epoxy, acrylic, silicone and polyurethane resins, curing agents, silver and ceramic fillers, film substrates) and downstream device makers. Its value-add is formulation know-how, application engineering and long qualification cycles that embed a material in a customer's bill of materials for the life of a product platform. In IC packaging, materials directly affect yield and reliability, which makes customer qualification slow (often 2–3 years for chip-level materials) but sticky once achieved. **Customer types and end-markets.** **IC packaging:** Typical customers (publicly named): JCET, Tongfu Microelectronics, Huatian Technology, ATX Semiconductor (日月新), SSD and optical-module makers; Application examples: Wafer thinning/dicing tapes, die attach, underfill, lid attach, TIM1/TIM1.5/TIM2 for CPUs, GPUs, AI chips, optical modules **Smart terminals:** Typical customers (publicly named): Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, Transsion, Goertek; Application examples: Structural PUR hot-melts, 3D-screen encapsulation resins, conductive and shielding adhesives for phones, watches, TWS earbuds, AR/VR **New energy:** Typical customers (publicly named): CATL and other battery makers; Tongwei, LONGi, Canadian Solar (historic direct customers); a North American shingled-module customer; Application examples: Power-battery structural and thermal adhesives, PACK potting, MS hybrid sealants; shingled-cell conductive adhesive, 0BB UV adhesives **High-end equipment:** Typical customers (publicly named): Automotive OEMs, rail, construction and mining machinery, appliances, power tools; Application examples: Body-in-white structural adhesives, chassis seam sealants, battery-box sealing, MRO adhesives **Independent characterisation.** Darbond is best understood as a two-engine business. The cash engine is new-energy adhesives — high volume, low margin (gross margin 15.2% in FY2024), heavily exposed to CATL-led price deflation. The value engine is a combined IC + smart-terminal franchise carrying 40–49% gross margins, which together rose from about 30% of revenue in FY2022 to about 41% in FY2025. The investment case depends on how fast IC materials — particularly AI-server TIMs (strengthened by the 2025 Techinno acquisition) and chip-level underfill/DAF/TIM1 — scale from small-batch to volume supply. Profitability has lagged revenue: net margin fell from about 13% in FY2021–FY2022 to 7.0% in FY2025 as new-energy pricing compressed, share-based compensation began, and IPO capacity added depreciation before full utilisation. 2026 shows the first clear operating-leverage inflection, with 9M2026 net profit up 52.7% on revenue up 30.5%.

MacDermid Alpha supplies the consumable chemistries and engineered materials used to build electronic interconnects, from the wafer to the finished circuit-board assembly. Its products cover four steps. Wet chemistries metallise and finish printed circuit boards (PCBs) and IC substrates. Electroplating chemistries such as ViaForm and MICROFAB build copper and tin-silver features on semiconductor wafers. Assembly materials (solder paste, bar, wire and preforms, fluxes, sinter pastes, die-attach adhesives, underfills, thermal interface materials and conformal coatings) join components together. Thick-film inks, pastes and low-temperature co-fired ceramics (Micromax) serve demanding electronics. The products are consumed in customers' production processes and often specified into customers' qualified process recipes. As a result, revenue is recurring, switching is costly, and on-site technical service is part of what customers buy. In 2025 the business generated USD 1,786 million of sales and USD 382 million of adjusted EBITDA, about 70% of its parent's revenue. By the third quarter of 2026, after the Micromax acquisition and an AI-infrastructure demand surge, it was 78% of group sales. It ranks among the largest global suppliers of electronics assembly materials and PCB metallisation chemistries. It is an established supplier of wafer-level plating and power-electronics attach materials. **What the business does.** Element Solutions describes its Electronics segment as supplying wet chemistries for metallisation, surface treatments and solderable finishes, which form the physical circuitry pathways, together with assembly materials such as solder, pastes, fluxes and adhesives that join those pathways. MacDermid Alpha describes itself as a global supplier of high-performance specialty chemicals, materials and process technologies for every step of electronics manufacturing. Its areas are circuitry formation, wafer-level and semiconductor assembly, circuit-board assembly, and film and smart-surface solutions. **Business model.** The model is consumables-led and technology-intensive. **Product sales (dominant):** Nearly all revenue comes from formulated chemicals and engineered metal or polymer materials that are consumed and replenished as customers run production. Element Solutions states that both of its segments sell products that, in substantially all cases, are consumed as part of the customer's production process. This produces recurring revenue. **Pass-through metals:** About 50% of Assembly Solutions' net sales is metal content (mainly tin and silver), and price changes in that content are generally passed through to customers. Micromax adds further metals-related revenue, with roughly two-thirds of its reported sales metals-related in the second quarter of 2026. The company says it generally earns no margin on the metal itself. Metal-price swings therefore move reported revenue and dilute percentage margins without materially changing profit dollars. **Equipment and service:** Equipment is sold occasionally alongside multi-year chemistry agreements. An equipment sale for a new production line in the third quarter of 2024 is one example. Technical service is bundled into the product rather than billed separately. Subscription and licensing revenue are not material. **Recycling:** The Assembly business runs a reclaim and recycling programme for solder dross and electronics manufacturing waste. In North America it describes itself as the largest solder manufacturer and recycler of such waste. **Value-chain position.** MacDermid Alpha is a Tier-2 materials supplier. Its direct customers include: - PCB and IC-substrate fabricators (Circuitry Solutions) - Electronics manufacturing services (EMS) companies and OEM assembly lines (Assembly Solutions) - Semiconductor fabs, outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) houses and power-module makers (Semiconductor Solutions) - Passive-component, automotive-sensor, photovoltaic and RF-module makers (Micromax) OEMs such as smartphone, server, automotive and industrial brand owners often specify its chemistries. That gives the business demand "pull" from customers further down the value chain. Element Solutions disclosed more than 17,600 customers across the group in its 2026 investor materials. No customer accounted for 10% or more of consolidated net sales in 2023, 2024 or 2025. **End markets served:** - High-performance computing and AI data-centre infrastructure (servers, accelerators, networking switches, optical modules) - Smartphones and consumer electronics - Automotive electronics, including EV power electronics - Industrial and power conversion - Telecommunications and data storage - Aerospace and defence - Low-earth-orbit satellites - Advanced semiconductor packaging, including fan-out, flip-chip, wafer-level and heterogeneous integration **Independent characterisation.** MacDermid Alpha is best understood as a "picks-and-shovels" consumables franchise on electronics unit volumes and complexity, rather than on capital spending. Three factors drive its economics: **Layer counts and interconnect density:** AI servers need high-layer-count, HDI and substrate boards that consume more metallisation chemistry per square metre. **Packaging complexity:** Advanced packaging needs wafer-level plating, sintering, thermal interface materials and underfill. **Electrification:** Silicon-carbide power modules use silver sinter and solder preforms. The business is more exposed to metals volatility and to Asian manufacturing activity than to Western capital spending. Its main cyclical sensitivity is consumer electronics, the segment's largest market in 2022–2023, when consumer demand fell and Electronics sales declined 12%.