ASE Test Ltd. said it posted a net loss $61.3 million in Q2, with $50.2 million of that loss resulting from a fire at a manufacturing plant in May.
　　ASE Test is a subsidiary of assembly giant ASE Ltd., which reported its results for Q2 Wednesday. Overall, the plant fire at ASE Test''s Chungli plant in Taiwan didn''t have a huge financial impact on its parent company.
　　ASE Test''s Q2 loss compared with $29.5 million in net income in the year ago period and a loss of $13

.6 million in Q2 of this year. On a per share basis, ASE Test absorbed a loss of 61 cents per share in Q2 of this year, compared to diluted earnings of 29 cents per share in the year ago period and a diluted loss of 14 cents per share in Q1 (all figures are according to U.S. GAAP).
　　For the current quarter, ASE Test anticipates total Q3 net revenue to increase sequentially by the low-single digits, percentage-wise. It expects its IC test business revenue to increase by approximately 10 percent quarter over quarter, its module assembly revenue to decline by approximately 20 percent, and its IC packaging revenue to be flat sequentially.
　　ASE also anticipates its gross margin in Q3 to be in the high-teen percentage; in Q2 it managed a gross margin of 11 percent. It also expects to spend less than $20 million in capital expenditures in the second half of the year, having spent some $16.5 million in the first half.