Sancode Buys Philippine Chip Packager Cirtek Electronics for $20.2 Million to Fast-Track Its Odisha OSAT Plant

India's chip-packaging ambitions have mostly been pursued through greenfield factories. Sancode Technologies is trying a shortcut: buying an operating overseas packager outright. The company's subsidiary, Sancode Semi Private Limited, has agreed to acquire 100% of Cirtek Electronics Corporation, a Philippines-based outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) company, for $20.2 million, according to a stock-exchange disclosure dated 23 October 2026 and subsequent reporting in India and the Philippines.

The seller, Cirtek Holdings Philippines Corp. (CHPC), said its board had approved the sale of all 155.5 million shares of Cirtek Electronics. Sancode says the deal is meant to bring packaging and test know-how, proprietary technology and established customers into its planned OSAT unit in Odisha.

The deal terms

• Price: $20.2 million for the entire equity of Cirtek Electronics Corporation (CEC). Philippine outlets converted that to roughly ₱1.27–1.29 billion.
• Structure: Two tranches. About $11.32 million is payable at closing; the remaining $8.88 million is due within a year, with the corresponding shares held in escrow until it is paid.
• Conditions: Completion is subject to conditions precedent and customary closing conditions.
• Target's size: CEC reported revenue of $26.62 million in FY2025, up from $23.08 million in FY2024.

For CHPC, the sale is a balance-sheet move. The group said it would use part of the proceeds to repay bank loans and put the rest into working capital for Cirtek Advanced Technologies and Solutions, the operating subsidiary it is keeping.

What Cirtek Electronics does

CEC provides the "back-end" steps that turn a finished silicon wafer into a usable chip: wafer dicing, die attach, wire bonding, encapsulation and final testing. Cirtek has historically been associated with radio-frequency and microwave semiconductor work, operating out of Biñan in the Philippines' Laguna province, one of South-East Asia's long-established electronics manufacturing belts.

That matters because OSAT is a business built on process discipline and customer qualification. A new packaging plant does not just need machines; it needs qualified recipes, yield data and, crucially, customers who have audited and approved it. Those approvals can take years to win. By acquiring a company that already serves what Sancode calls Tier I customers, Sancode is buying an order book and a team that already knows how to run production lines to customer specification.

The Odisha connection

Sancode's Indian plan dates back to SEMICON India 2025, where it signed an MoU with the Odisha government for a semiconductor facility. In February 2026 Odisha's High-Level Clearance Authority gave in-principle approval for an OSAT unit in Khordha district with a proposed investment of ₹1,650 crore, subject to standard conditions and statutory clearances. A later report placed the unit at Info Valley II near Bhubaneswar, on a 20-acre site allotted by the state's industrial development corporation, IDCO.

The company has since been building a leadership team. Jerry A. Agnes was appointed CEO of Sancode Semi with effect from 15 October 2026, with responsibility for facility design, equipment selection, process qualification and the transition to commercial production. Sancode says the Cirtek purchase will "accelerate" the ramp-up of the Odisha plant.

Some caution is warranted. The ₹1,650 crore figure is an approximate capital-expenditure estimate, and one analysis noted that the roughly ₹107 crore the subsidiary had raised represented only about 6.5% of the stated project cost. Sancode has not published capacity or throughput figures for the Odisha unit, and no source directly links specific Cirtek product lines to what will be made in India.

Why this fits India's chip strategy

India's semiconductor push has a clear division of labour. A handful of large projects, such as Tata Electronics' Dholera fab and its Jagiroad assembly plant in Assam, Micron's Sanand facility and several OSAT units in Gujarat and elsewhere, anchor the ecosystem. Around them, states are courting smaller packaging and testing ventures that are cheaper to build and quicker to bring online.

OSAT is where India can most realistically win early share. Assembly and test is less capital-intensive than wafer fabrication, it employs more people per rupee invested, and it is a segment where South-East Asian countries such as Malaysia and the Philippines built their industries decades ago. Acquiring a Philippine operation gives an Indian entrant direct access to that accumulated experience, rather than having to learn it on the job.

The deal is also a small example of a broader trend: Indian electronics companies using outbound acquisitions to import capability. Similar logic has driven chip-design and testing firms to buy overseas teams, and it may become more common as Indian groups look for proven processes to qualify new plants quickly.

What to watch

The next milestones are closing the acquisition and paying the second tranche within the year, followed by visible progress at the Odisha site: equipment orders, a construction timeline and, eventually, customer qualification. If Sancode can transfer Cirtek's processes and customer relationships to Bhubaneswar, it would give eastern India a working chip-packaging operation and add to the country's still-modest back-end capacity. If not, it will own a profitable Philippine packager, which is not a bad fallback.

Sources

• https://www.arthneeti.com/announcements/sancode-technologies-ltd-announcement-under-regulation-30-lodr-acquisition-23-oct-2026
• https://context.ph/2026/10/26/cirtek-sells-electronics-unit-for-20-2-million-to-indias-sancode/
• https://businessmirror.com.ph/2026/10/27/cirtek-holdings-sells-unit-to-cut-debt-and-beef-up-capital/
• https://scanx.trade/stock-market-news/companies/sancode-subsidiary-acquire-philippine-osat-firm-20-2-million/54302457
• https://www.electronicsforyou.biz/industry-buzz/sancode-targets-odisha-semiconductor-ramp-up-with-usd-20-2m-osat-deal/
• https://kalingatv.com/features/%E2%82%B91650-crore-semiconductor-push-odisha-clears-sancode-technologies-osat-facility-signals-deeper-play-in-chip-manufacturing/
• https://www.whalesbook.com/corporate-news/English/technology/Sancode-Technologies-Appoints-Jerry-A-Agnes-as-CEO-of-Sancode-Semi/6acc9b2cb2eb76fd08c1601e