Amkor says that Glass Substrates, a packaging technology replacement for CoWoS spearheaded by Intel, is set for commercialization within 3 years.
Intel-Partner, Amkor, Says Glass Substrates Will See First Commercialization Within Three Years
Advanced Packaging is key to any major foundry business as chips are getting more and more complex to meet growing compute and memory demands.
TSMC is the single-most important advanced packaging provider in the world thanks to its CoWoS 2.5D technology. Current chip requirements involve integration of HBM and logic chips in a single package & the number of HBM chips is expanding aggressively. Recently, OpenAI showcased how it aims to use an EMIB-like solution to break the current CoWoS constraints.
Semiconductor makers such as TSMC are expanding chip capabilities by introducing new CoWoS chip solutions with a 2029 design that implements a >14-reticle size solution, offering 24x HBM packages. Then we have more advanced solutions such as SoW-X, which will scale to >40-reticle size and >60x HBM packages. This will increase the compute output of next-gen chips dramatically, but such solutions also have some problems.
The main problem is complexity and cost. As designs continue to scale higher and higher, designing the chip becomes difficult. These designs also introduce severe thermal and mechanical stress, which could introduce warping. Additionally, the time to produce a chip also rises with RDL-based processes, reaching over a month.
These cause bottlenecks in the semiconductor ecosystem in relation to performance, substrates, thermal management, connectivity technologies, and data transmission structures. To overcome this, the Glass Substrates technology is being seen as a viable alternative.
During the Elec conference held in Seoul, Korea, Team Leader of Amkor Technology, Yoo Dong-soo, stated that Glass Substrates offer much superior thermal stability and deformation suppression characteristics vs traditional organic substrates.
"In the past, there were doubts about whether glass substrates could withstand the stress received during packaging, but technological stability is being secured," said Team Leader Yu. "We expect them to be commercialized within three years."
Too Dong-soo - Team Leader of Amkor Technology via The Elec
Amkor is already a key partner of Intel on Glass Substrates, and major firms have shown interest in the next-gen technology that will change the foundation of the chip manufacturing business. Intel already showcased its first "Glass Core" substrates that utilize EMIB advanced packaging technology to power next-generation AI products.
The Glass Substrates project was initiated under the previous Intel CEO, Pat Gelsinger. There were reports that Intel might move away from the project, but Intel's current CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, has shown interest in keeping it rolling forward.
Three years is not a long wait in the grand scheme of things, and if Glass Substrates play out the way they are being marketed, then Intel's Foundry business is expected to become one of the leading chip-making centers of the AI world.
News Source: The Elec
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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