King Yuan Electronics (KYEC) has been requested by Huawei's semiconductor subsidiary HiSilicon to provide 20-30% more of the testing house's available production capacity in the first quarter of 2019, according to industry sources.

HiSilicon is ramping up its orders placed with KYEC, said the sources, adding that the orders are for 5G base-station chips. HiSilicon is gearing up for initial 5G deployments in China that will focus on sub-6GHz frequencies.

Meanwhile, KYEC has entered volume production for orders placed by FPGA specialist Xilinx, which already has its 5G-related chip solutions go through the engineering verification testing stage, the sources continued. The IC testing company has seen clear order visibility through the end of the second quarter, the sources noted.

KYEC has also obtained chip testing orders from Intel and Nvidia. KYEC is set to outperform its fellow Taiwan-based backend service providers in terms of revenue growth during the first half of 2019, the sources indicated.

In response, KYEC said it does not comment on specific customers and orders. The backend firm also does not provide guidance.

KYEC chairman CK Lee was quoted in previous reports saying the company expects to maintain stable revenue growth this year, driven mainly by growing revenues generated from orders for 5G base-station chips.