A Vision Realized
During the year 1951, two men – along with $500 and a borrowed 1948 Plymouth Coupe formed a partnership that would
become a world leader of assembly solutions. They were Fred Kulicke and Al Soffa.
After five years of working together, Western Electric turned to K&S to develop equipment to efficiently manufacture
early semiconductor chips. What was created from the challenge was the world's first wire bonder. With this contract
K&S became one of the world's first suppliers of semiconductor assembly equipment, and the company incorporated
on November 26, 1956.
In 1961, K&S became a public corporation, traded on the pink sheets. In 1971, with the inception of NASDAQ, K&S became one of the first companies listed. Until today, K&S’ initial stock offering of 100,000 shares has grown to over 70 million after several stock splits and additional offerings. Today, K&S is more than twice the size of its nearest assembly equipment competitor and is the market share leader in automatic ball bonding equipment, wedge bonding equipment and wire bonding tools.
K&S is truly a global company, with 2,950 employees and major manufacturing facilities in China, Malaysia and
Singapore. Over the years, K&S has expanded our product and service offerings to include bonding tools and dicing
blades. As in the past, K&S innovation combined with our emphasis on customer satisfaction, continue to set the
standard for the industry.