ChipMOS Technologies - 20-F annual report 2024

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT FOR PURPOSES OF THE “SAFE HARBOR” PROVISIONS OF

THE PRIVATE SECURITIES LITIGATION REFORM ACT OF 1995

Except for historical matters, the matters discussed in this Annual Report on Form 20-F are forward-looking statements that are subject to a number of significant risks and uncertainties and are based on information as of the date hereof. These statements are generally indicated by the use of forward-looking terminology such as the words “anticipate”, “believe”, “estimate”, “expect”, “intend”, “may”, “plan”, “project”, “will”, “could”, “might”, “should” and other words and phrases of similar import that express an indication of actions or results of actions that may or are expected to occur in the future. These statements appear in a number of places throughout this Annual Report on Form 20-F and include statements regarding our intentions, beliefs or current expectations concerning, among other things, our results of operations, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, growth, strategies and the industries in which we operate.

By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and our actual results of operations, financial condition and liquidity, and the development of the industries in which we operate may differ materially from those made in or suggested by the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 20-F. Important factors that could cause those differences include, but are not limited to:

The factors identified above are believed to be important factors (but not necessarily all of the important factors) that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statement made by us. Other factors not discussed herein could also have material adverse effects on us. All forward-looking statements included in this Annual Report on Form 20-F are expressly qualified in their entirety by the foregoing cautionary statements. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement (or its associated cautionary language), whether as a result of new information or future events.

Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our strategy and future plans, future business condition and financial results, our capital expenditure plans, our capacity expansion plans, our investments in Mainland China, technological upgrades, investment in research and development, future market demand, future regulatory or other developments in our industry. Please see “Item 3. Key Information—Risk Factors” for a further discussion of certain factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by our forward-looking statements.

EXCHANGE RATES

References to “US$” and “US dollars” are to United States dollars and references to “NT$” and “NT dollars” are to New Taiwan dollars. This Annual Report on Form 20-F contains translations of certain NT dollar amounts into US dollars at specified rates solely for the convenience of the reader. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from NT dollars to US dollars and from US dollars to NT dollars were made at the noon buying rate in the City of New York for cable transfers in NT dollars per US dollar as certified for customs purposes by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as of December 31, 2024, which was NT$32.79 to US$1.00. We make no representation that the NT dollar or US dollar amounts referred to in this Annual Report on Form 20-F could have been or could be converted into US dollars or NT dollars, as the case may be, at any particular rate or at all.

PART I

Item 1.Identity of Directors, Senior Management and Advisers

Not applicable.

Item 2.Offer Statistics and Expected Timetable

Not applicable.

Item 3.Key Information

Capitalization and Indebtedness

Not applicable.

Reasons for the Offer and Use of Proceeds

Not applicable.

Risk Factors

Risks Relating to Economic Conditions and the Financial Markets

Global inflation and financial markets disruptions could materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Disruptions in global inflation, interest rate rising, financial markets and trade tensions may occur that causes diminished liquidity and limited availability of credit, reduced consumer confidence, reduced economic growth, increased unemployment rates and uncertainty about economic stability. Limited availability of credit in financial markets may lead consumers and businesses to postpone spending. This in turn may cause our customers to cancel, decrease or delay their existing and future orders with us. Particularly, the economics uncertainty caused by trade tensions and inflation, which led the weakness of macro-economic environment, will impact the end product market demand. The softness in broader market demand including smart phones, TVs, PC/servers and other consumer products, directly affects the inventory elimination of our customers. The decrease in segment revenue of display panel driver semiconductor assembly and testing services was principally due to the weakness of macro-economic environment, softness in market demand and customer adjustment of inventory levels, all of which led to the decreased utilization rate of our production lines since the second half of 2024.

Financial difficulties experienced by our customers or suppliers as a result of these conditions could lead to production delays and delays or defaults in payment of accounts receivable. We are not able to predict the occurrence, frequency, duration or extent of disruptions in global inflation and financial markets, or when the trade tensions could be settled down. These conditions increase the difficulty of accurately forecasting and planning our business activities. If these conditions and uncertainties occur or continue, or if credit and financial markets and confidence in economic conditions deteriorate, our business and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Risks Relating to Our Industry

Because we depend on the highly cyclical semiconductor industry, which is characterized by significant and sometimes prolonged downturns from time to time, our revenue and earnings may fluctuate significantly, which in turn could adversely affect our results of operations and could cause the market price of our common shares or of our ADSs to decline.

Because our business is, and will continue to be, dependent on the requirements of semiconductor companies for independent assembly and testing services, any downturn in the highly cyclical semiconductor industry may reduce demand for our services and adversely affect our results of operations. All of our customers operate in this industry and variations in order levels and in service fee from our customers may result in volatility in our revenue and earnings. For instance, during periods of decreased demand for assembled semiconductors, some of our customers may simplify, delay or forego final testing of certain types of semiconductors, such as dynamic random access memory or DRAM, NOR Flash and NAND Flash, which in turn may result in reduced demand for our services, adversely affecting our results of operations. From time to time, the semiconductor industry has experienced significant, and sometimes prolonged, downturns which have adversely affected our results of operations. We cannot give any assurances that there will not be any downturn in the future or that any future downturn will not materially and adversely affect our results of operations.

Any deterioration in the market for end-user applications for semiconductor products would reduce demand for our services and may result in a decrease in our earnings.

Market conditions in the semiconductor industry track, to a large degree, those for their end-user applications. Any deterioration in the market conditions for the end-user applications of semiconductors we test and assemble could reduce demand for our services and, in turn, could materially adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations. Our revenue is largely attributable to fees derived from testing and assembling semiconductors for use in personal computers, communications equipment, consumer electronic products and display applications. A significant decrease in demand for products in these markets could put pricing pressure on our assembly and testing services and negatively affect our revenue and earnings. The Display driver market often aligns with broader economic trend, we cannot give any assurances that there will not be any downturn in the future or that any future downturn will not affect our results of operations. Any significant decrease in demand for end-user applications of semiconductors will negatively affect our revenue and earnings.

A decline in average selling prices for our services could result in a decrease in our earnings.

Historically, prices for our assembly and testing services in relation to any given semiconductor tend to decline over the course of its product and technology life cycle. See also “— A decrease in market demand for LCD, OLED, automotive panel and other display panel driver semiconductors may adversely affect our capacity utilization rates and thereby negatively affect our profitability”. If we cannot reduce the cost of our assembly and testing services, or introduce higher-margin assembly and testing services for new package types, to offset the decrease in average selling prices for our services, our earnings could decrease.

A reversal or slowdown in the outsourcing trend for semiconductor assembly and testing services could reduce our profitability.

Integrated device manufacturers, or IDMs, continue to increasingly outsource stages of the semiconductor production process, including assembly and testing, to independent companies like us to shorten production cycles. In addition, the availability of advanced independent semiconductor manufacturing services has also enabled the growth of so-called “fabless” semiconductor companies that focus exclusively on design and marketing and outsource their manufacturing, assembly and testing requirements to independent companies. A substantial portion of our revenue is indirectly generated from providing semiconductor assembly and testing services to these IDMs and fabless companies. We cannot assure you that these companies will continue to outsource their assembly and testing requirements to independent companies like us. A reversal of, or a slowdown in, this outsourcing trend could result in reduced demand for our services, which in turn could reduce our profitability.

Extra-tariffs in semiconductor content coming out of Taiwan could impact our business and reduce our profitability.

In February 2025, President Trump announced a plan to impose extra-tariffs on semiconductors. Despite the extra-tariffs in semiconductor content coming out of Taiwan would not directly impact our business nor gross profit based on currently business model, the end-users may restructure the supply chain to areas or countries that are not imposed extra-tariffs to reduce their cost, which could impact our further business. Furthermore, the end-customers maybe seek the opportunity for semiconductor supply chain absorbing the extra-tariffs to maintain their competition, that will reduce our revenue and gross profit.

Risks Relating to Our Business

If we are unable to compete effectively in the highly competitive semiconductor assembly and testing markets, we may lose customers and our income may decline.

The semiconductor assembly and testing markets are very competitive. We face competition from a number of IDMs with in-house assembly and testing capabilities and other independent semiconductor assembly and testing companies. Our competitors may have access to more advanced technologies and greater financial and other resources than we do. Many of our competitors have shown a willingness to reduce prices quickly and sharply in the past to maintain capacity utilization in their facilities during periods of reduced demand. In addition, an increasing number of our competitors conduct their operations in lower cost centers in Asia such as Mainland China. Any renewed or continued erosion in the prices or demand for our assembly and testing services as a result of increased competition could adversely affect our profits.

We are highly dependent on the market for memory products. A downturn in market prices for these products could significantly reduce our revenue and profit.

A significant portion of our revenue is derived from testing and assembling memory semiconductors. In the past, our service fees for testing and assembling memory semiconductors were sharply reduced in tandem with the decrease in the average selling price of DRAM, NOR Flash and NAND Flash in the semiconductor industry. Oversupply of DRAM, NOR Flash or NAND Flash products and weak demand in the DRAM, NOR Flash or NAND Flash market may result in significant reductions in the price of DRAM, NOR Flash or NAND Flash products, which in turn may drive down the average prices for our assembly and testing services for DRAM, NOR Flash and NAND Flash products and further reduce our revenue and profit. We cannot assure you that there will not be further downturns in DRAM, NOR Flash or NAND Flash prices in the future.

A decrease in market demand for LCD, OLED, automotive panel and other display panel driver semiconductors may adversely affect our capacity utilization rates and thereby negatively affect our profitability.

Our assembly and testing services for Display panel driver semiconductors generated revenue of NT$7,289 million, NT$7,822 million and NT$7,319 million (US$223 million) in 2022, 2023 and 2024, respectively. We invested NT$2,677 million, NT$1,757 million and NT$2,258 million (US$69 million) in 2022, 2023 and 2024, respectively, on equipment for chip-on-film, or COF and chip-on-glass, or COG, technologies, which are used in assembly and testing services for LCD, OLED, automotive panel and other display panel driver semiconductors. Most of this equipment may not be used for technologies other than COF or COG. The demand went down in second half of 2022 due to customer inventory adjustment for market weakness. However, we observed some rebound sign for OLED and automotive panel driver IC demand since Lunar New Year holiday 2024 but it is still fluctuation since the second half of 2024. Any significant decrease in demand for these products and our related services would significantly impact our capacity utilization rates. That may result in our inability to generate sufficient revenue to cover the depreciation expenses for the equipment used in testing and assembling LCD, OLED, automotive panel and other display panel driver semiconductors, thereby negatively affecting our profitability. See also “—Because of our high fixed costs, if we are unable to achieve relatively high capacity utilization rates, our earnings and profitability may be adversely affected”.

Our significant amount of indebtedness and interest expense will limit our cash flow and could adversely affect our operations.

We have a significant level of debt and interest expense. As of December 31, 2024, we had approximately NT$13,759 million (US$420 million) outstanding long-term indebtedness. Our long-term indebtedness as of December 31, 2024, represented bank loans with an interest rate from 1.325% to 1.875%. As of December 31, 2024, NT$10,213 million (US$311 million) of our indebtedness was secured by collateral comprised of our assets.

Our significant indebtedness poses risks to our business, including the risks that:

For additional information on our indebtedness, see “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects—Liquidity and Capital Resources”.

Our results of operations may fluctuate significantly and may cause the market price of our common shares or of our ADSs to be volatile.

Our results of operations have varied significantly from period to period and may continue to vary in the future. Among the more important factors affecting our quarterly and annual results of operations are the following:

Because of the factors listed above, our future results of operations or growth rates may be below the expectations of research analysts and investors. If so, the market price of our common shares or of our ADSs, and the market value of your investment, may fall.

We rely on key customers for a substantial portion of our revenue and a loss of, or deterioration of the business from, or delayed payment by, any one of these customers could result in decreased revenue and materially adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

We rely on a small group of customers for a substantial portion of our business. In 2024, our top five customers collectively accounted for 60% of our revenue. As part of our strategy, we have been focusing on sales to key customers through long-term service agreements. We also focus on our business with smaller customers and customers who do not place orders on a regular basis. We expect that we will continue to rely on a relatively limited number of customers for a significant portion of our revenue. Any adverse development in our key customers’ operations, competitive position or customer base could materially reduce our revenue and materially adversely affect our business and profitability.

Semiconductor companies generally rely on service providers with whom they have established relationships to meet assembly and testing needs. New customers usually require us to pass a lengthy and rigorous qualification process. Accordingly, if we lose any of our key customers, we may not be able to replace them in a timely manner. If any of our key customers reduces or cancels its orders or terminates existing contractual arrangements, and if we are unable to attract new customers and establish new contractual arrangements with existing or new customers, our revenue could be reduced and our business and results of operations may be materially adversely affected.

Because of our high fixed costs, if we are unable to achieve relatively high capacity utilization rates, our earnings and profitability may be adversely affected.

Our operations are characterized by a high proportion of fixed costs. For memory and logic/mixed-signal semiconductor testing services, our fixed costs represented 52%, 50% and 47% of our total cost of revenue in 2022, 2023 and 2024, respectively. For memory and logic/mixed-signal semiconductor assembly services, our fixed costs represented 22%, 26% and 25% of our total cost of revenue in 2022, 2023 and 2024, respectively. For Display panel driver semiconductor assembly and testing services, our fixed costs represented 61%, 59% and 58% of our total cost of revenue in 2022, 2023 and 2024, respectively. For bumping services, our fixed costs represented 21%, 19% and 17% of our total cost of revenue in 2022, 2023 and 2024, respectively. Our profitability depends in part not only on absolute pricing levels for our services, but also on the utilization rates for our assembly and testing equipment, commonly referred to as “capacity utilization rates”. Increases or decreases in our capacity utilization rates can significantly affect our gross margins as unit costs generally decrease as the fixed costs are allocated over a larger number of units. In the past, our capacity utilization rates have fluctuated significantly as a result of the fluctuations in the market demand for semiconductors. If we fail to increase or maintain our capacity utilization rates, our earnings and profitability may be adversely affected. In addition, the long-term assembly and testing services agreements we entered with certain customers may require us to incur significant capital expenditures. If we are unable to achieve high capacity utilization rates for the equipment purchased pursuant to these agreements, our gross margins may be materially and adversely affected.

The assembly and testing process is complex and our production yields and customer relationships may suffer as a result of defects or malfunctions in our testing and assembly equipment and the introduction of new packages.

Semiconductor testing and assembly are complex processes that require significant technological and process expertise. Semiconductor testing involves sophisticated test equipment and computer software. We develop computer software to test our customers’ semiconductors. We also develop conversion software programs that enable us to test semiconductors on different types of testers. Similar to most software programs, these software programs are complex and may contain programming errors or bugs. In addition, the testing process is subject to human error by our employees who operate our test equipment and related software. Any significant defect in our testing or conversion software, malfunction in our test equipment or human error could reduce our production yields and damage our customer relationships.

The assembly process involves a number of steps, each of which must be completed with precision. Defective packages primarily result from:

These and other factors have, from time to time, contributed to lower production yields. They may do so in the future, particularly as we expand our capacity or change our processing steps. In addition, to be competitive, we must continue to expand our offering of packages. Our production yields on new packages typically are significantly lower than our production yields on our more established packages. Our failure to maintain high standards or acceptable production yields, if significant and prolonged, could result in a loss of customers, increased costs of production, delays, substantial amounts of returned goods and related claims by customers. Further, to the extent our customers have set target production yields, we may be required to compensate our customers in a pre-agreed manner. Any of these problems could materially adversely affect our business reputation and result in reduced revenue and profitability.

Because of the highly cyclical nature of our industry, our capital requirements are difficult to plan. If we cannot obtain additional capital when we need it, we may not be able to maintain or increase our current growth rate and our profits will suffer.

As our industry is highly cyclical and rapidly changing, our capital requirements are difficult to plan. To remain competitive, we may need capital to fund the expansion of our facilities as well as to fund our equipment purchases and research and development activities. To meet our liquidity, capital spending and other capital needs, we have taken and plan to take certain measures to generate additional working capital and to save cash. See “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects—Liquidity and Capital Resources”. We cannot assure you that these plans and measures will be implemented or will provide sufficient sources of capital.

In addition, future capacity expansions or market or other developments may require additional funding. Our ability to obtain external financing in the future depends on a number of factors, many of which are beyond our control. They include:

If we are unable to obtain funding in a timely manner or on acceptable terms, our growth prospects and potential future profitability will suffer.

Disputes over intellectual property rights could be costly, deprive us of technologies necessary for us to stay competitive, render us unable to provide some of our services and reduce our opportunities to generate revenue.

Our ability to compete successfully and achieve future growth will depend, in part, on our ability to protect our proprietary technologies and to secure, on commercially acceptable terms, critical technologies that we do not own. We cannot assure you that we will be able to independently develop, or secure from any third party, the technologies required for our assembly and testing services. Our failure to successfully obtain these technologies may seriously harm our competitive position and render us unable to provide some of our services.

Our ability to compete successfully also depends on our ability to operate without infringing upon the proprietary rights of others. The semiconductor assembly and testing industry is characterized by frequent litigation regarding patent and other intellectual property rights. We may incur legal liabilities if we infringe upon the intellectual property or other proprietary rights of others. We are not able to ascertain what patent applications have been filed in the United States or elsewhere, however, until they are granted. If any third party succeeds in its intellectual property infringement claims against us or our customers, we could be required to:

Any one of these developments could impose substantial financial and administrative burdens on us and hinder our business. We are, from time to time, involved in litigation in respect of intellectual property rights. Any litigation, whether as plaintiff or defendant, is costly and diverts our resources. If we fail to obtain necessary licenses on commercially reasonable terms or if litigation, regardless of the outcome, relating to patent infringement or other intellectual property matters occurs, our costs could be substantially increased to impact our margins. Any such litigation could also prevent us from testing and assembling particular products or using particular technologies, which could reduce our opportunities to generate revenue.

If we are unable to obtain raw materials and other necessary inputs from our suppliers in a timely and cost-effective manner, our production schedules would be delayed and we may lose customers and growth opportunities and become less profitable.

Our operations require us to obtain sufficient quantities of raw materials at acceptable prices in a timely and cost-effective manner. We source most of our raw materials, including critical materials like leadframes, organic substrates, epoxy, gold wire and molding compound for assembly, and tapes for COF, from a limited group of suppliers. We purchase all of our materials on a purchase order basis and have no long-term contracts with any of our suppliers. From time to time, suppliers have extended lead times, increased the price or limited the supply of required materials to us because of market shortages. Consequently, we may, from time to time, experience difficulty in obtaining sufficient quantities of raw materials on a timely basis. In addition, from time to time, we may reject materials that do not meet our specifications, resulting in declines in output or yield. Although we typically maintain at least two suppliers for each key raw material, we cannot assure you that we will be able to obtain sufficient quantities of raw materials and other supplies of an acceptable quality in the future. It usually takes from three to six months to switch from one supplier to another, depending on the complexity of the raw material. If we are unable to obtain raw materials and other necessary inputs in a timely and cost-effective manner, we may need to delay our production and delivery schedules, which may result in the loss of business and growth opportunities and could reduce our profitability.

If we are unable to obtain additional assembly and testing equipment or facilities in a timely manner and at a reasonable cost, we may be unable to fulfill our customers’ orders and may become less competitive and less profitable.

The semiconductor testing and assembly business is capital intensive and requires significant investment in expensive equipment manufactured by a limited number of suppliers. The market for semiconductor assembly and testing equipment is characterized, from time to time, by intense demand, limited supply and long delivery cycles. Our operations and expansion plans depend on our ability to obtain equipment from a limited number of suppliers in a timely and cost-effective manner. We have no binding supply agreements with any of our suppliers and we acquire our assembly and testing equipment on a purchase order basis, which exposes us to changing market conditions and other significant risks. Semiconductor assembly and testing also requires us to operate sizable facilities. If we are unable to obtain equipment or facilities in a timely manner, we may be unable to fulfill our customers’ orders, which could negatively impact our financial condition and results of operations as well as our growth prospects. Currently, we do not have any long-term service agreements that require our commitment to acquire additional assembly and testing equipment or facilities. We cannot assure you, however, that such commitment will not be made in the future. See “Item 4. Information on the Company—Customers”.

If we are unable to manage the expansion of our operations and resources effectively, our growth prospects may be limited and our future profitability may be reduced.

We expect to continue to expand the operations and to increase the number of employees. Rapid expansion puts a strain on our managerial, technical, financial, operational and other resources. As a result of our expansion, we will need to implement additional operational and financial controls and hire and train additional personnel. We cannot assure you that we will be able to do so effectively in the future, and our failure to do so could jeopardize our expansion plans and seriously harm our operations.

Laws of the Republic of China may be less protective of shareholder rights than laws of the United States or other jurisdictions.

Our corporate affairs are governed by our Articles of Incorporation and laws governing corporations incorporated in the Republic of China (“ROC”). The rights of our shareholders to bring shareholders’ suits against us or our Board of Directors under the ROC law are more limited than those of the shareholders of U.S. corporations. For example, the ROC Company Act requires that a shareholder that continuously holds at least 1% of our issued and outstanding shares for at least 6 months may request our audit committee to institute an action against a director on the Company’s behalf. In addition, the controlling shareholders of U.S. corporations owe fiduciary duties to minority shareholders, while controlling shareholders in ROC corporations do not. Therefore, our shareholders may be less able under the ROC law than they would be under the laws of the United States or other jurisdictions to protect their interests in connection with actions by our management, members of our Board of Directors or our controlling shareholder.

It may be difficult to bring and enforce lawsuits against us in the United States.

We are incorporated in the ROC and a majority of our directors and most of our officers are not residents of the United States. A substantial portion of our assets is located outside the United States. As a result, it may be difficult for our shareholders to serve notice of a lawsuit on us or our directors and officers within the United States. Because most of our assets are located outside the United States, it may be difficult for our shareholders to enforce in the United States judgments of United States courts. Any United States judgments obtained against us will not be enforced by ROC courts if any of the following situations shall apply to such final judgment:

Investor confidence and the market price of our common shares or ADSs may be adversely impacted if we are unable to maintain effective Internal Control over Financial Reporting in accordance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

We are required to comply with the ROC and US securities laws and regulations in connection with internal controls. As a public company in the United States, our management is required to assess the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting using the criteria established in Internal Control – Integrated Framework (2013) issued by Committee of Sponsoring Organization of the Treadway Commission (COSO), as required by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. We carried out an evaluation, under the supervision and with the participation of management, including our President, the principal executive officer and Vice President of the Finance and Accounting Management Center, the principal financial officer of the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting as of December 31, 2024, and concluded those internal controls over financial reporting were effective as of that date. See “Item 15. Controls and Procedures” for more information. Moreover, even if our management concludes that our internal controls over our financial reporting are effective, our independent public registered accounting firm may disagree. If our independent public registered accounting firm is not satisfied with our internal controls over our financial reporting or the level at which our controls are documented, designed, operated or reviewed, or if the independent public registered accounting firm interprets the requirements, rules or regulations differently from us, it may decline to attest our effectiveness of internal controls over financial reporting or may issue an adverse opinion in the future. Any of these possible outcomes could result in an adverse reaction in the financial marketplace due to a loss of investor confidence in the reliability of our consolidated financial statements, which ultimately could negatively impact the market prices of our common shares or ADSs.

Any environmental claims or failure to comply with any present or future environmental regulations, or any new environmental regulations, may require us to spend additional funds, may impose significant liability on us for present, past or future actions, and may dramatically increase the cost of providing our services to our customers.

We are subject to various laws and regulations relating to the use, storage, discharge and disposal of chemical by-products of, and water used in, our assembly and gold bumping processes. Although we have not suffered material environmental claims in the past, a failure or a claim that we have failed to comply with any present or future regulations could result in the assessment of damages or imposition of fines against us, suspension of production or a cessation of our operations or negative publicity. New regulations could require us to acquire costly equipment or to incur other significant expenses. Any failure on our part to control the use of, or adequately restrict the discharge of, hazardous substances could subject us to future liabilities that may materially reduce our earnings.

Fluctuations in exchange rates could result in foreign exchange losses.

Currently, we are nearly 58% of revenue denominated in US dollars. Our cost of revenue and operating expenses, on the other hand, are incurred in several currencies, including NT dollars, Japanese yen and US dollars. In addition, a substantial portion of our capital expenditures, primarily for the purchase of LCD, OLED, automotive panel and other display panel driver semiconductor, assembly and testing equipment, has been, and is expected to continue to be, denominated in US dollars with much of the remainder in Japanese yen. We also have debt denominated in NT dollars, Japanese yen, and US dollars. Fluctuations in exchange rates, primarily among the US dollar, the NT dollar and the Japanese yen, will affect our costs and operating margins in NT dollar terms. In addition, these fluctuations could result in exchange losses and increased costs in NT dollar terms. Despite selective hedging and other techniques implemented by us, fluctuations in exchange rates have affected, and may continue to affect, our financial condition and results of operations.

We may not be successful in our acquisitions, investments, joint ventures and dispositions, and may therefore be unable to implement fully our business strategy.

To implement our business strategy requires us to enter into acquisition, investment, joint venture and disposition transactions. These transactions may not be successful to maintain or grow our business. On December 21, 2023, the Company’s Board of Directors approved its wholly-owned subsidiary, ChipMOS TECHNOLOGIES (BVI) LTD., (“ChipMOS BVI”) to sell its entire 45.0242% equity interests in Unimos Microelectronics (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (“Unimos Shanghai”) for a total sale price of RMB 979.3 million in cash. Under the agreement, ChipMOS BVI sold its entire remaining 45.0242% equity interests in Unimos Shanghai to Suzhou Oriza PuHua ZhiXin Equity Investment Partnership (L.P.) and other local Chinese investment management companies. In May 2024, the equity transfer of Unimos Shanghai had completed. Please see “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects—Recent Acquisition” for additional information.

The success of our acquisitions, investments, joint ventures and dispositions depends on a number of factors, including:

If we are unsuccessful in our acquisitions, investments, joint ventures and dispositions, we may not be able to implement fully our business strategy to maintain or grow our business.

We rely on key personnel, and our revenue could decrease and our costs could increase if we lose their services.

We depend on the continued service of our executive officers and skilled engineering, technical and other personnel. We will also be required to hire a substantially greater number of skilled employees in connection with our expansion plans. In particular, we depend on a number of skilled employees in connection with our LCD, OLED, automotive panel and other display panel driver semiconductor assembly and testing services, and the competition for such employees in Taiwan is intense. We may not be able to either retain our present personnel or attract additional qualified personnel as and when needed. Moreover, we do not carry key person insurance for any of our executive officers nor do we have employment contracts with any of our executive officers. If we lose any of our key personnel, it could be very difficult to find and integrate replacement personnel, which could affect our ability to provide our services, resulting in reduced revenue and earnings. In addition, we may need to increase employee compensation levels in order to retain our existing officers and employees and to attract additional personnel. As of February 28, 2025, 28% of the workforce at our facilities are foreign workers employed by us under work permits that are subject to government regulations on renewal and other terms. Consequently, if the regulations in Taiwan relating to the employment of foreign workers were to become significantly more restrictive or if we are otherwise unable to attract or retain these workers at reasonable cost, we may be unable to maintain or increase our level of services and may suffer reduced revenue and earnings.

If our information technology systems or those of our service providers with whom we share our confidential information succumb to cyberattacks by third parties worldwide, our business and operations may be severely interrupted or even shut down, and our results of operations, financial condition, prospects and reputation may also be materially and adversely affected.

Even though we have established a comprehensive internet and computing security network, we cannot guarantee that our computing systems which control or maintain vital corporate functions, such as our manufacturing operations and enterprise accounting, would be completely immune to crippling cyberattacks. In the event of a cyberattack, our systems may lose important corporate data or our production lines may be shut down pending the resolution of such cyberattack. Cyberattacks could also lead to loss or divulgence of trade secrets and other sensitive information, such as proprietary information of our customers and other stakeholders and personal information of our employees. While we seek to continuously review and assess our cybersecurity policies and procedures to ensure their confidentiality, integrity and availability, we cannot guarantee that we will not be susceptible to new and emerging risks and attacks in the evolving landscape of cybersecurity threats.

Malicious hackers may also try to introduce computer viruses, malicious software or ransomware into our network systems to disrupt our operations, blackmail us to regain control of our computing systems, or spy on us for sensitive information. These attacks may result in us having to pay damages for our delayed or disrupted orders or incur significant expenses in implementing remedial and improvement measures to further enhance our cybersecurity network, and may also expose us to significant legal liabilities arising from or related to legal proceedings or regulatory investigations associated with such breaches.

We employ certain third-party service providers for us and our affiliates worldwide with whom we need to share highly sensitive and confidential information to enable them to provide the relevant services. While we require such third-party service providers to strictly fulfill the confidentiality and/or internet security requirements in our service agreements with them, there is no assurance that each of them will comply with such obligations. Moreover, such third-party service providers may also be susceptible to cyberattacks. If we or our service providers are not able to timely resolve the respective technical difficulties caused by such cyberattacks, or ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our data (and data belonging to our customers and other third parties) or maintain control of our or our service providers’ computing systems, our commitments to our customers and other stakeholders may be materially impaired and our results of operations, financial condition, prospects and reputation may also be materially and adversely affected. Please see “Item 16K. Cybersecurity” for additional information.

Risks Relating to Countries in Which We Conduct Operations

Any future outbreak of health epidemics and outbreaks of contagious diseases may materially affect our operations and business.

Any future outbreak of contagious diseases, such as avian influenza virus subtypes H5N1, H9N2 and H7N9 and swine influenza virus subtypes H1N1 and H3N2, New Influenza A or more commonly known as the “bird flu” and “swine flu”, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (“SARS”), Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (“MERS-CoV”), or COVID-19, for which there is inadequate treatment or no known cure or vaccine, may potentially result in a quarantine of infected employees and related persons, or even significant governmental measures being implemented to control the spread, including, among others, restrictions on travel, manufacturing and the movement of employees in many regions of the world. The occurrence could adversely affect our operations at one or more of our facilities or the operations of our customers or suppliers.

We cannot predict the impact that any further future outbreak of the aforementioned viruses or other diseases could have on our business and results of operations. If any of our employees is suspected of having contracted any contagious disease, we may, under certain circumstances, be required to quarantine such employees and the affected areas of our premises, or adhere to governmental measures to control the spread. As a result, we may have to suspend part or all of our operations temporarily, or may experience delays in product development, a decreased ability to support our customers, and overall lack of productivity. Our customers may also experience closures of their manufacturing facilities or inability to obtain other components, either of which could negatively impact demand for our solutions. In addition, any future outbreak may restrict the level of economic activity in affected regions, which may also adversely affect our businesses. As a result, there is no assurance that any future outbreak of contagious diseases would not have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We face substantial political risk associated with doing business in the ROC, particularly due to the strained relations between the ROC and the PRC, which could negatively affect our business and the market price of our common shares or ADSs.

Our principal executive offices and our assembly and testing facilities are located in the ROC. As a result, our business, financial condition and results of operations and the market price of our common shares or ADSs may be affected by changes in the ROC governmental policies and the political relationship between the ROC and the PRC, as well as social instability and diplomatic and social developments in or affecting the ROC which are beyond our control. The ROC has a unique international political status. The PRC government regards Taiwan as a province and does not recognize the legitimacy of the ROC as an independent country. Relations between the ROC and the PRC have often been strained. In March 2005, the PRC government enacted the “Anti-Secession Law” codifying its policy of retaining the right to use military force to gain control over Taiwan, particularly under what it considers as highly provocative circumstances, such as a declaration of independence by Taiwan or the refusal by the ROC to accept the PRC’s stated “One China” principle.

In 2024, the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (“DPP”) won Taiwan’s Presidential Election. The President, Lai Ching-te, stressed that he would maintain the status quo with the PRC. However, the PRC continues to ramp up pressures through various means on the DPP administration for their refusal to accept the “One China” principle. It is uncertain how these different measures may affect our financial condition and results of operations, and there is no assurance that any future measures imposed by the PRC or ROC would not adversely affect our financial condition or results of operations.

Past developments related to the interaction between the ROC and the PRC have on occasion depressed the market prices of the securities of Taiwanese or Taiwan-related companies, including our own. We cannot assure you any contentious situations between the ROC and the PRC will resolve in maintaining the current status quo or remain peaceful. Relations between the ROC and the PRC and other factors affecting military, political or economic stability in Taiwan could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations, as well as the market price and the liquidity of our common shares or ADSs.

The business and operations of our business associates and our own business operations are vulnerable to disruptions that may be caused by natural disasters and other events.

The frequency and severity of catastrophic events, including natural disasters and severe weather has been increasing, in part due to climate change or systemic regional geological changes that manifest in damaging earthquakes. ChipMOS has manufacturing and other operations in locations susceptible to natural disasters, such as flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, and droughts that may cause interruptions or shortages in the supply of utilities, such as water and electricity that could disrupt operations. In addition, ChipMOS’s suppliers and customers also have operations in such locations. We currently provide most of our testing services through our facilities in the Hsinchu Science Park and the Hsinchu Industrial Park in Taiwan, and all of our assembly services through our facility in the Southern Taiwan Science Park, which are susceptible to earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding, typhoons, and droughts from time to time that may cause shortages in electricity and water or interruptions to our operations. Significant damage or other impediments to these facilities as a result of natural disasters, industrial strikes or industrial accidents could significantly increase our operating costs.

The production facilities of many of our suppliers, customers and providers of complementary semiconductor manufacturing services, including foundries, are located in Taiwan. If our customers are adversely affected by natural disasters or other events occurring in or affecting these geographic areas, it could result in a decline in the demand for our assembly and testing services. If our suppliers and providers of complementary semiconductor manufacturing services are affected by such events, our production schedule could be halted or delayed. As a result, a major earthquake, other natural disaster, industrial strike, industrial accident or other disruptive event occurring in or affecting Taiwan could severely disrupt our normal operation of business and have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

ChipMOS has occasionally suffered power outages or surges in Taiwan caused by difficulties encountered by its electricity supplier, the Taiwan Power Company, or other power consumers on the same power grid, which have resulted in interruptions to our operations. Such shortages or interruptions in electricity supply could further be exacerbated by changes in the energy policy of the government which intends to make Taiwan a nuclear-free country. The major earthquake in Hualien in 2024 further disrupted power generation facilities, and frequent typhoon strikes had a substantial impact on the semiconductor industry as well. If we are unable to secure reliable and uninterrupted supply of electricity to power our manufacturing fabs within Taiwan, our ability to fill customers’ orders would be severely jeopardized. We maintain a comprehensive risk management system dedicated to the safety of people, the conservation of natural resources, and the protection of property. In order to effectively handle emergencies and natural disasters, at each facility management has developed comprehensive plans and procedures that focus on risk prevention, emergency response, crisis management and business continuity. All ChipMOS manufacturing factories have been ISO 14001 certified (environmental management system) and ISO 45001 certified (occupational health and safety management system).

ChipMOS pays special attention to preparedness of emergency response to disasters, such as typhoons, floods and droughts caused by climate change, earthquakes and disruptions to water, electricity and other public utilities. We have established a company-wide taskforce dedicated to managing the risk of a water or electricity shortage that might arise due to climate change. Despite our preparedness, there is no assurance that any such natural disaster would not severely disrupt our normal operation of business and have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

Any future outbreak of radiation-related disease as a result of nuclear power plant reactors damage caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 may materially adversely affect our operations and business.

The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 raises tremendous concerns about the possible effects of radiation emission from the damaged nuclear power plants. Japanese official authorities are working with experts in assessing the risk and determining the best courses of actions to implement to escape harmful radiation. The potential health effects due to exposure to harmful radiation may be temporary or permanent harmful effects in nature.

Multiple radioactive gases could possibly be emitted in a situation where uranium attains a “meltdown” state, which is a severe overheating of the core of a nuclear reactor, in which the core melts and radiation and heat are caused to escape. This would occur if the containment system partially or fully fails. The particles that are released with the gases due to the meltdown would be the spewed particles of iodine-131, strontium-90 and cesium-137. These might enter into a human by being swallowed, absorbed through the skin, or inhaled. Depending on the chemical characteristics of each of these and their predilection for certain body tissues, they could cause cancers of such organs as bones, soft tissues near bones, thyroid gland, and the bone marrow (typically known as leukemia).

Acute or very high level radiation exposure can cause a person to become very ill or to die quickly. Ionizing radiation, which is defined as high-energy particles or electromagnetic waves that can break chemical bonds, damage humans by disrupting cellular function, particularly in tissues with rapid growth and turnover of cells. Intense, high level and/or excessive radiation exposure may result in acute radiation syndrome whereby harmful effects to the human body may be evidenced by skin burns, internal organ deterioration, bleeding, vomiting, bone marrow distortion and deaths. If the radiation exposure is less intense and/or more prolonged at a lower level, then the central nervous system, kidneys, thyroid gland, and liver may be affected. Cancer is the most well-known effect, and may affect virtually any significantly exposed tissue.

Certain health effects due to exposure to harmful radiation does not have adequate treatment or known cure or vaccine, consequently, may potentially result in a quarantine of infected employees and related persons, and adversely affect our operations at one or more of our facilities or the operations of our customers or suppliers. We cannot predict the probability of any future outbreak of radiation related diseases as a possible result of nuclear power plants damage caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 or the extent of the material adverse impact that this could have on our business and results of operations.

Risks Relating to Our Common Shares or ADSs

The Company’s ability to maintain its listing and trading status of common shares on the Taiwan Stock Exchange or ADSs on the Nasdaq Stock Market is dependent on factors outside of the Company’s control and satisfaction of stock exchange requirements. The Company may not be able to overcome such factors that disrupt its trading status of common shares on the Taiwan Stock Exchange or ADSs on the Nasdaq Stock Market or satisfy other eligibility requirements that may be required of it in the future.

The Company became listed and commenced trading its common shares on the main board of Taiwan Stock Exchange (“TWSE”) on April 11, 2014 and its ADSs on the Nasdaq on November 1, 2016. For a TWSE-listed and Nasdaq-listed company to continue trading on the main board of TWSE and Nasdaq depends in part on market conditions and other factors that may not within the control of the Company. For these reasons there can be no assurance that the Company’s shares will continue to be listed or traded on the TWSE or ADSs will continue to be listed or traded on the Nasdaq.

Volatility in the price of our common shares or ADSs may result in shareholder litigation that could in turn result in substantial costs and a diversion of our management’s attention and resources.

The financial markets in the United States and other countries have experienced significant price and volume fluctuations, and market prices of technology companies have been and continue to be extremely volatile. Volatility in the price of our common shares or ADSs may be caused by factors outside of our control and may be unrelated or disproportionate to our results of operations. Shareholders of public companies such as the Company frequently institute securities class action litigations against companies following periods of volatility in the market price of public company securities including common shares and ADSs. Litigation of this kind against the Company could result in substantial costs and a diversion of our management’s attention and resources.

Certain provisions in our constitutive documents and in our severance agreements with our executive officers make the acquisition of us by another company more difficult and costly and therefore may delay, defer or prevent a change of control.

We entered into change in control severance agreements with certain management pursuant to which we agreed to pay certain severance payments if a change in control event (as defined in the change in control severance agreements) occurs and the employment of such executive officer is terminated by our company other than for cause or by such executive officer for good reasons within two years following the occurrence of the change in control event. These agreements may increase the cost of a party seeking to effect a change in control of our company.

Future sales, pledge or issuance of common shares or ADSs by us or our current shareholders could depress our share price or ADSs price and you may suffer dilution.

Sales of substantial amounts of common shares or ADSs in the public market, the perception that future sales may occur, or the pledge of a substantial portion of our common shares or ADSs could depress the prevailing market price of our common shares or ADSs. See “Item 7. Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions—Major Shareholders” for further information about our major shareholders.

The Company was listed and commenced trading of common shares on the main board of TWSE on April 11, 2014. See “—Risks Relating to Our Common Shares or ADSs—The Company’s ability to maintain its listing and trading status of common shares on the Taiwan Stock Exchange or ADSs on the Nasdaq is dependent on factors outside of the Company’s control and satisfaction of stock exchange requirements. The Company may not be able to overcome such factors that disrupt its trading status of common shares on the Taiwan Stock Exchange or ADSs on the Nasdaq or satisfy other eligibility requirements that may be required of it in the future” for additional information on the Company’s listing on the main board of TWSE. We plan to issue, from time to time, additional shares in connection with employee compensation and to finance possible future capital expenditures, investments or acquisitions. The issuance of additional shares may have a dilutive effect on other shareholders and may cause the price of our common shares or ADSs to decrease.

Holders of Our ADSs do not have the same voting rights as holders of our common shares.

Under the ROC Company Act, except under limited circumstances, shareholders have one vote for each common share held. See “Item 10. Additional Information—Voting Rights” for a discussion of voting rights of holders of our common shares. Holders of our ADSs do not have the same voting rights as holders of our common shares. Instead, the voting rights of a holder of our ADSs are governed by the Deposit Agreement and are able to exercise voting rights on an individual basis as follows: if a holder of our ADSs outstanding at the relevant record date instructs the depositary to vote in a particular manner for or against a resolution, including the election of directors, the depositary will cause all the shares represented by such holder’s ADSs to be voted in that manner. If the depositary does not receive timely instructions from a holder of our ADSs outstanding at the relevant record date to vote in a particular manner for or against any resolution, including the election of directors, such holders of our ADSs will be deemed to have instructed the depositary or its nominee to give a discretionary proxy to a person designated by the Company to vote all the shares represented by such holder’s ADSs at the discretion of such person, which may not be in the interest of holders of our ADSs.

If a non-ROC holder of our ADSs withdraws and holds our shares, such holder of our ADSs will be required to appoint a tax guarantor, local agent and custodian in the ROC and register with the TWSE in order to buy and sell securities on the TWSE.

When a non-ROC holder of our ADSs elects to withdraw and hold our shares represented by our ADSs, such holder of our ADSs will be required to appoint an agent for filing tax returns and making tax payments in the ROC. Such agent will be required to meet the qualifications set by the ROC Ministry of Finance and, upon appointment, will become the guarantor of the withdrawing holder’s tax payment obligations. Evidence of the appointment of a tax guarantor, the approval of such appointment by the ROC tax authorities and tax clearance certificates or evidentiary documents issued by such tax guarantor may be required as conditions to such holder repatriating the profits derived from the sale of our shares. We cannot assure you that a withdrawing holder will be able to appoint, and obtain approval for, a tax guarantor in a timely manner.

In addition, under the current ROC law, such withdrawing holder is required to register with the TWSE and appoint a local agent in the ROC to, among other things, open a bank account and open a securities trading account with a local securities brokerage firm, pay taxes, remit funds and exercise such holder’s rights as a shareholder. Furthermore, such withdrawing holder must appoint a local bank or local securities firm to act as custodian for confirmation and settlement of trades, safekeeping of securities and cash proceeds and reporting and declaration of information. Without satisfying these requirements, non-ROC withdrawing holders of our ADSs would not be able to hold or otherwise subsequently sell our shares on TWSE or otherwise. Appointment of an agent or a tax guarantor might also incur additional costs.

Pursuant to Mainland investors regulations, only qualified domestic institutional investors (the “QDIIs”, each a “QDII”) or persons that have otherwise obtained the approval from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, ROC (the “MOEA”) and registered with the TWSE are permitted to withdraw and hold our shares from a depositary receipt facility. In order to hold our shares, such QDIIs are required to appoint an agent and custodian as required by the Mainland investors regulations. If the aggregate amount of our shares held by any QDII or shares received by any QDII upon a single withdrawal accounts for 10.0% of our total issued and outstanding shares, such QDII must obtain the prior approval from the MOEA. We cannot assure you that such approval would be granted.

Restriction on the ability to deposit our shares into our ADR facility may adversely affect the liquidity and price of our ADSs.

The ability to deposit our shares into our ADR facility is restricted by the ROC law. Under the current ROC law, no person or entity, including you and the Company, may deposit our shares into our ADR facility without specific approval of the Financial Supervisory Commission of the ROC, or the FSC, unless:

With respect to item (4) above, the depositary may issue our ADSs against the deposit of our shares only if the total number of our ADSs outstanding following the deposit will not exceed the number of our ADSs previously approved by the FSC, plus any our ADSs issued pursuant to the events described in items (1), (2) and (3) above.

In addition, in the case of a deposit of our shares requested under item (4) above, the depositary will refuse to accept deposit of such our shares if such deposit is not permitted under any legal, regulatory or other restrictions notified by the Company to the depositary from time to time, which restrictions may include blackout periods during which deposits may not be made, minimum and maximum amounts and frequency of deposits.

The rights of holders of our ADSs to participate in our rights offerings are limited, which could cause dilution to your holdings.

The Company may from time to time distribute rights to its shareholders, including rights to acquire its securities. Under the Deposit Agreement, the depositary will not offer holders of our ADSs those rights unless both the distribution of the rights and the underlying securities to all our ADS holders are either registered under the Securities Act or exempt from the registration under the Securities Act. Although the Company may be eligible to take advantage of certain exemptions under the Securities Act available to certain foreign issuers for rights offering, the Company can give no assurances that it will be able to establish an exemption from registration under the Securities Act, and it is under no obligation to file a registration statement for any of these rights. Accordingly, holders of our ADSs may be unable to participate in our rights offerings and may experience dilution of their holdings.

If the depositary is unable to sell rights that are not exercised or not distributed or if the sale is not lawful or reasonably practicable, it will allow the rights to lapse, in which case holders of our ADSs will receive no value for these rights.

Changes in exchanges controls which restrict your ability to convert proceeds received from your ownership of our ADSs may have an adverse effect on the value of your investment.

Under the current ROC law, the depositary may, even without obtaining approvals from the Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) or any other governmental authority or agency of the ROC, convert NT dollars into other currencies, including US dollars, for:

In addition, the depositary may also convert into NT dollars incoming payments for purchase of common shares for deposit in ADR facility against the creation of additional ADSs. However, the depositary may be required to obtain foreign exchange approval from the Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) on a payment-by-payment basis for conversion from NT dollars into foreign currencies of the proceeds from the sale of subscription rights for new common shares. We cannot assure you that any approval will be obtained in a timely manner, or at all.

Under the ROC Foreign Exchange Control Law, the Executive Yuan of the ROC government may, without prior notice but subject to subsequent legislative approval, impose foreign exchange controls in the event of, among other things, a material change in international economic conditions. We cannot assure you that foreign exchange controls or other restrictions will not be introduced in the future.

Item 4.Information on the Company

Overview of the Company

We are one of the leading independent providers of semiconductor assembly and testing services. Specifically, we are one of the leading independent providers of testing and assembly services for LCD, OLED, automotive panel and other display panel driver semiconductors and advanced memory and logic/mixed-signal products in Taiwan. The depth of our engineering expertise and the breadth of our assembly and testing technologies enable us to provide our customers with advanced and comprehensive assembly and testing services. In addition, our geographic presence in Taiwan is attractive to customers wishing to take advantage of the logistical and cost efficiencies stemming from our close proximity to foundries and producers of consumer electronic products in Taiwan. Our production facilities are located in Hsinchu and Tainan, Taiwan.

Our Structure and History

We are a company limited by shares, incorporated on July 28, 1997, under the ROC Company Act, under the name “ChipMOS TECHNOLOGIES INC.” (“ChipMOS Taiwan”), as a joint venture company between Mosel Vitelic Inc. (“Mosel”) and Siliconware Precision Industries Co., Ltd. (“Siliconware Precision”) and with the participation of other investors. Our operations consist of the assembly and testing of semiconductors as well as gold bumping and memory module manufacturing. Our principal place of business is located at No. 1, R&D Road 1, Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan, ROC and its phone number is +886-3-577-0055 and our internet website address is “www.chipmos.com”. The Company listed and commenced trading on the main board of TWSE on April 11, 2014.

According to the merger agreement, entered between the Company and ChipMOS TECHNOLOGIES (Bermuda) LTD. (“ChipMOS Bermuda”) dated January 21, 2016 (the “Merger Agreement”), ChipMOS Bermuda merged with and into the Company, with the Company being the surviving company after the Merger. The transaction was accounted as capital reorganization within the Company and its subsidiaries (the “Group”), please see “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects—Recent Acquisitions”. Any common shares of ChipMOS Bermuda issued and outstanding immediately prior to the effective time of the Merger was cancelled and, in exchange, each former holder of such cancelled common shares of ChipMOS Bermuda was entitled to receive, with respect to each such share (i) US$3.71 in cash, without interest, and (ii) 0.9355 ADSs representing 18.71 shares of the Company (each ADS representing 20 new common shares, par value of NT$10 each, to be issued by the Company) in exchange for each of ChipMOS Bermuda’s common share held (the US$3.71 in cash and together with the ADSs, the “Merger Consideration”). The Merger was completed and effective on October 31, 2016. The Company issued 512,405,340 common shares represented by the ADSs and the ADSs were listed on the Nasdaq on November 1, 2016.

The following chart illustrates our corporate structure and our equity interest in each of our principal subsidiaries as of the date of this Annual Report on Form 20-F.

Note:

Agreements with Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd.

On November 30, 2016, the Equity Interest Transfer Agreements among ChipMOS BVI, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, and some strategic investors which including Unigroup Guowei, a subsidiary of Tsinghua Unigroup, were executed. Pursuant to the Equity Interest Transfer Agreements, ChipMOS BVI would sell 54.98% equity interests of its wholly-owned subsidiary, Unimos Shanghai, to the strategic investors, and Unigroup Guowei would hold 48% equity interests of Unimos Shanghai, and the other strategic investors, including a limited partnership owned by Unimos Shanghai’s employees, would own approximately 6.98% equity interest of Unimos Shanghai. The transaction was completed in March 2017. Unimos Shanghai is no longer the subsidiary of the Company following the completion of equity interest transfer. Also pursuant to the agreement, ChipMOS BVI and the strategic investors agreed to further invest RMB 1,074 million into Unimos Shanghai. The further investment was completed in two tranches, one in July 2017 at RMB 687 million and one in February 2018 at RMB 387 million. On December 16, 2019, Unigroup Guowei and one of the strategic investor sold and transferred all equity interests of Unimos Shanghai to Yangtze Memory, which holds 50% equity interests of Unimos Shanghai after completed transaction. On May 11, 2020, one of the strategic investor sold and transferred all equity interests of Unimos Shanghai to Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. (“Yangtze Memory”), which holds 50.94% equity interests of Unimos Shanghai after completed transaction. On July 24, 2023, Yangtze Memory sold and transferred all equity interests of Unimos Shanghai to Yangtze Memory Technologies Holding Co., Ltd., (“Yangtze Memory Holding”), which holds 50.94% equity interests of Unimos Shanghai after completed transaction.

Agreements with Suzhou Oriza PuHua ZhiXin Equity Investment Partnership (L.P.)

On December 21, 2023, the Company’s Board of Directors approved its wholly-owned subsidiary, ChipMOS BVI to sell its entire 45.0242% equity interests in Unimos Shanghai for a total sale price of RMB 979.3 million in cash. Under the agreement, ChipMOS BVI sold its entire remaining 45.0242% equity interests in Unimos Shanghai to Suzhou Oriza PuHua ZhiXin Equity Investment Partnership (L.P.) and other local Chinese investment management companies. ChipMOS BVI completed the equity interest transfer of Unimos Shanghai in May 2024, and fully received the consideration amounted in December 2024. For additional information on the transaction, see “Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects—Recent Acquisition”.

Our Principal Consolidated Subsidiaries

Below is a description of our principal consolidated subsidiaries:

ChipMOS TECHNOLOGIES (BVI) LTD., or formerly known as MODERN MIND TECHNOLOGY LIMITED ChipMOS BVI was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands in January 2002.

ChipMOS SEMICONDUCTORS (Shanghai) LTD. ChipMOS Shanghai was incorporated in Mainland China in March 2020, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of ChipMOS BVI. It primarily engaged in providing marketing of semiconductors and electronic related produces, for its parent company and affiliates, throughout Mainland China.

ChipMOS U.S.A., Inc. ChipMOS USA was incorporated in the United States of America in October 1999. It is primarily engaged in providing marketing of semiconductors and electronic related produces, for its parent company and affiliates, throughout the United States of America. ChipMOS USA began generating revenue in 2001.

Industry Background

We provide a broad range of back-end assembly and testing services. Testing services include engineering test, wafer probing and final test of memory and logic/mixed-signal semiconductors. We also offer a broad selection of leadframe- and organic substrate-based package assembly services for memory and logic/mixed-signal semiconductors. In addition, we provide gold bumping, reel to reel assembly and testing services for LCD, OLED, automotive panel and other display panel driver semiconductors by employing COF and COG technologies.

Semiconductors tested and assembled by us are used in personal computers, graphics applications such as game consoles, communications equipment, mobile products, such as cellular handsets, tablets, consumer electronic products, automotive/industry and display applications such as display panels. In 2024, 21.9% of our revenue was derived from testing services for memory and logic/mixed-signal semiconductors, 23.8% from assembly services for memory and logic/mixed-signal semiconductors, 32.2% from Display panel driver semiconductor assembly and testing services and 22.1% from bumping services for semiconductors, respectively.

In additional, stable long-term demand and high margin are basic characters of automotive application. More semiconductor chips and display panel are consumed with the trend of popularization of automotive panels and Electric Vehicle (EV) could benefit our margin and increase our earnings.

Semiconductor Industry Trends

Growth in the semiconductor industry is largely driven by end-user demand for consumer electronics, communications equipment and computers. Semiconductors are critical components of these products and applications. Geopolitics and global inflationary pressures since the second half of 2024 are contributing factors to overall semiconductor industry supply chain inventory level increases and rapid decreases in end-user demand, except AI. Ongoing fluctuations in our markets related to these factors potentially affect our results of operations.

Memory Semiconductor Market

The potential for memory market growth is linked to anticipated memory content increases in consumer electronics, data center, wireless base-station, PC and smartphone applications due to updated system requirements (such as 5G & wifi 6), increasing use of storage, graphics in gaming and other applications. The memory market is dominated by two segments-DRAM and flash memory. Potential growth in the DRAM and NAND Flash market is expected to be driven by continued growth in both the commodity and niche DRAM market, as well as growth opportunities in mobile DRAM as memory requirements significantly increase for mobile applications and storage requirement for data center application. Flash memory market potential growth is expected to be driven by increasing memory requirements for cellular handsets, digital cameras, digital audio/video, server, wireless base-station and other mobile applications, and new application demand of NOR flash for automotive/industry, OLED panel and touch with display driver integration (TDDI). However, AI application drove strong demand of the High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), integrated DDR5 memory solution in 2023 and 2024.

LCD, OLED, automotive panel and Other Display panel Driver Semiconductor Market

Display panels are used in applications such as desktop monitors, notebooks, tables, television sets, cellular handsets and digital cameras. The end-user demand for LCD, OLED, automotive panel and other display panel driver semiconductors tends to very over time. The soft demand of TVs impacted our utilization level of COF assembly. Regarding the small panel application, an integrated driver IC solution, TDDI, which became main stream of smart phone panel since 2021. OLED and automotive panel DDIC growth in the second half of 2022. Also, as more and more displays are installed in cars and EV, more driver IC grew for automotive application in 2023 and 2024.

Logic/Mixed-Signal Semiconductor Market

The communications market is one of the main drivers of potential growth in the semiconductor industry. Logic/mixed-signal semiconductors, which are chips with analog functionality covering more than half of the chip area, are largely used in the communications market. The increasing use of digital technology in communications equipment requires chips with both digital and analog functionality for applications such as modems, network routers, switches, cable set-top boxes and cellular handsets. As the size and cost of cellular handsets and other communications-related devices have decreased, components have increased in complexity. Logic/mixed-signal semiconductors, such as LCD controller, power devices, fingerprint sensors and MEMS products, TV scaler and DVD controllers, are also used in consumer electronic products.

Overview of the Semiconductor Manufacturing Process

The manufacturing of semiconductors is a complex process that requires increasingly sophisticated engineering and manufacturing expertise. The manufacturing process may be broadly divided into the following stages:

Outsourcing Trends in Semiconductor Manufacturing

Historically, integrated device manufacturers (“IDMs”), designed, manufactured, tested and assembled semiconductors primarily at their own facilities. In recent years, there has been a trend in the industry to outsource various segments of stages in the manufacturing process to reduce the high fixed costs resulting from the continuously more complex manufacturing process. Virtually every significant stage of the manufacturing process can be outsourced. The independent semiconductor manufacturing services market currently consists of wafer fabrication and probing services and semiconductor assembly and testing services. Most of the world’s major IDMs now use some independent semiconductor manufacturing services to maintain a strategic mix of internal and external manufacturing capacity. Many of these IDMs are continuously significantly reducing their investments in new semiconductor assembly and testing facilities.

The availability of technologically advanced independent semiconductor manufacturing services has also enabled the growth of “fabless” semiconductor companies that focus exclusively on semiconductor design and marketing and outsource fabrication, assembly and testing requirements to independent companies.

We believe the outsourcing of semiconductor manufacturing services, and in particular of assembly and testing services, will increase for many reasons, including the following:

Significant Capital Expenditure Requirements. Driven by increasingly sophisticated technological requirements, wafer fabrication, assembly and testing processes have become highly complex, requiring substantial investment in specialized equipment and facilities and sophisticated engineering and manufacturing expertise. In addition, product life cycles have been shortened magnifying the need to continuously upgrade or replace manufacturing, assembly and testing equipment to accommodate new products. As a result, new investments in in-house fabrication, assembly and testing facilities are becoming less desirable for IDMs because of the high investment costs, as well as difficulties in achieving sufficient economies of scale and utilization rates to be competitive with the independent service providers. On the contrary, independent foundry, assembly and testing companies are able to realize the benefits of specialization and achieve economies of scale by providing services to a large customer base across a wide range of products. This enables them to reduce costs and shorten production cycles through high capacity utilization and process expertise.

Increasing Focus on Core Competencies. As the costs of semiconductor manufacturing facilities increase, semiconductor companies are expected to further outsource wafer fabrication, assembly and testing requirements to focus their resources on core competencies, such as semiconductor design and marketing.

Time-to-Market Pressure. Increasingly short product life cycles have amplified time-to-market pressure for semiconductor companies, leading them to rely more and more on independent companies as a key source for effective wafer fabrication, assembly and testing services.

Semiconductor Assembly and Testing Services Industry

Growth in the semiconductor assembly and testing services industry is driven by increased outsourcing of the various stages of the semiconductor manufacturing process by IDMs and fabless semiconductor companies.

The Semiconductor Industry and Conditions of Outsourcing in Taiwan and Mainland China

Taiwan is one of the world’s leading locations for outsourced semiconductor manufacturing. The semiconductor industry supply chain in Taiwan has developed such that the various stages of the semiconductor manufacturing process have been disaggregated, thus allowing for specialization. The disaggregation of the semiconductor manufacturing process in Taiwan permits these semiconductor manufacturing service providers to focus on particular parts of the production process, develop economies of scale, maintain higher capacity utilization rates and remain flexible in responding to customer needs by lowering time-to-market pressure faced by semiconductor companies. There are several leading service providers in Taiwan, each of which offers substantial capacity, high-quality manufacturing, leading semiconductor wafer fabrication, test, assembly and process technologies, and a full range of services. These service providers have access to an educated labor pool and a large number of engineers suitable for sophisticated manufacturing industries. As a result, many of the world’s leading semiconductor companies outsource some or all of their semiconductor manufacturing needs to Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing service providers and take advantage of the close proximity among facilities in the supply chain. In addition, companies located in Taiwan are very active in the design and manufacture of electronic systems, which has created significant local demand for semiconductor devices.

A few years ago, Mainland China had emerged as an attractive location for outsourced semiconductor manufacturing. Companies could take advantage of strongly supports by Mainland China government to accelerate the development of the semiconductor industry and a large domestic market. These factors had driven increased relocation of much of the electronics industry manufacturing and supply chain to Mainland China. But according to the economics uncertainty caused by the trade tensions and US semiconductor restrictions, the related investment risk in China is increasing. An increasing number of global electronic systems manufacturers and contract manufacturers are relocating or have relocated production facilities away from Mainland China.

Our Strategy

Our goal is to reinforce our position as a leading independent provider of semiconductor assembly and testing services, concentrating principally on memory, logic/mixed-signal and OLED, automotive panel and other display panel driver semiconductors. The principal components of our business strategy are set forth below.

Focus on Providing Our Services to Potential Growth Segments of the Semiconductor Industry.

We intend to continue our focus on developing and providing advanced assembly and testing services for potential growth segments of the semiconductor industry, such as memory, logic/mixed-signal, OLED, automotive panel and other display panel driver semiconductors and bumping services. We believe that our investments in equipment and research and development in some of these areas allow us to offer a service differentiated from that of our competition. In order to benefit from the expected resumption of growth in these segments, we intend to continue to invest in capacity to meet the assembly and testing requirements of these key semiconductor market segments.

Continue to Invest in the Research and Development of Advanced Assembly and Testing Technologies.

Critical to our business growth is the continuation to expand our capabilities in testing and assembly and integrate wafer bumping and assembly core technologies to provide turn-key total solution service to our customers. We typically focus on advanced technologies that consist of greater potentials to generate higher margins. For example, we conducted new product introductions and on an on-going basis continue to expand our capabilities in fine-pitch wafer bumping, multi-chip package (“MCP”) and flip chip packaging. We are also introducing a low cost silver alloy bump products based on our intellectual property to service display panel market. We continue to maintain close working relationships with local and overseas research institutions and universities to keep abreast with leading edge technologies and broaden the scope of applications.

In 2024, we focus our research and development efforts in the following areas:

In 2024, we spent approximately 5.1% of our revenue on research and development. We will continue to invest our resources to recruit and retain experienced research and development personnel. As of February 28, 2025, our research and development team comprised 680 employees.

Build on Our Strong Presence in Taiwan and Strong Industrial Position Outside Taiwan.

We intend to build on our strong presence in key centers of semiconductor and electronics manufacturing to grow our business. Currently, most of our operations are in Taiwan, one of the world’s leading locations for outsourced semiconductor manufacturing. This presence provides us with several advantages. Firstly, our proximity to other semiconductor companies is attractive to customers who wish to outsource various stages of the semiconductor manufacturing process. Secondly, our proximity to many of our suppliers, customers and the end-users of our customers’ products enables us to be involved in the early stages of the semiconductor design process, enhances our ability to quickly respond to our customers’ changing requirements and shortens our customers’ time-to-market. Thirdly, we have access to an educated labor pool and a large number of engineers who are able to work closely with our customers and other providers of semiconductor manufacturing services.

Depending on customer’s demands, market conditions and other relevant considerations, we may from time to time look into other opportunities to expand our operations outside of Taiwan.

Expand Our Offering of Vertically Integrated Services.

We believe that one of our competitive strengths is our ability to provide vertically integrated services to our customers. Vertically integrated services consist of the integrated testing, assembly and direct shipment of semiconductors to end-users designated by our customers. Providing vertically integrated services enables us to shorten lead times for our customers. Time-to-market and cost are sources of competitive advantage for our customers. As a result, our customers increasingly value our ability to provide them with comprehensive back-end services.

We are able to offer vertically integrated services for a broad range of products, including memory, logic/mixed-signal and LCD, OLED, automotive panel and other display panel driver semiconductors. These services offerings include complementary technologies, products and services as well as additional capacity. We believe that these will continue to enhance our own development and expansion efforts into new and potential growth markets. We intend to establish new alliances with leading companies and, if suitable opportunities arise, engage in merger and acquisition activities that will further expand the services we can provide.

Focus on Increasing Sales through Long-Term Agreements with Key Customers as well as Business with Smaller Customers.

From time to time, we strategically agree to commit a portion of our assembly and testing capacity to certain of our customers. We intend to continue focus on increasing sales to key customers through long-term capacity agreements. The customers with which we entered long-term agreements include a reputable memory customer based in the U.S. See “—Customers” below for a more detailed discussion of these long-term agreements.

Global market and economic conditions have been unprecedented and challenging with tight credit conditions and recession in most major economies since 2008. In the fourth quarter of 2021, a long term 3-year capacity secure agreement with our customer about high end wafer test for OLED and other display panel driver demand was settled to reduce our investment risk. We also resumed our focus on our business with smaller customers or customers who do not place orders on a regular basis. We believe that the dual focused strategy will assist us to be better prepared for the current economic volatility and ensure maximum utilization rate of our capacity and help us to develop closer relationships with all types of our customers.

Principal Products and Services

The following table presents, for the periods shown, revenue by service segment as a percentage of our revenue.