Recently, TSMC announced that it expects capital expenditures to exceed $40 billion in 2022, of which 10% will be used for advanced packaging. As the main competitor of TSMC, Samsung has also made harsh remarks to compete with TSMC in the field of advanced packaging. Intel invested $7 billion in Malaysia at the end of last year to expand advanced packaging capacity, seeing advanced packaging technology as the key to its revitalization.
Yole data shows that the advanced packaging market revenue will exceed $42 billion by 2025, which is almost three times the expected growth rate of the traditional packaging market. In the post-Moore era, advanced packaging has increasingly become the focus of market attention. Traditional packaging manufacturers are also under increasing pressure, and the competition pattern in the packaging market seems to be undergoing earth-shaking changes.
Fabs are uniquely advantaged
OSAT manufacturers are outsourced semiconductor (product) packaging and testing manufacturers, mainly for Foundry company to do IC product packaging and testing industry chain links, the main business in the traditional packaging and testing process. Therefore, in terms of advanced packaging, OSAT manufacturers do not have an advantage over wafer manufacturers.
It is understood that the traditional packaging process is mechanical processing, such as grinding, sawing, welding wire, etc., and the packaging process steps are mainly carried out after the die cutting. Unlike advanced packaging, almost all packaging steps are completed in the form of wafers to reduce the size of the chip.
Zhao Chao, executive vice president of Beijing Superstring Memory Research Institute and part-time doctoral supervisor of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said that although OSAT manufacturers have a lot of experience in traditional packaging process processing, the experience is not as good as that of wafer manufacturers in wafer-level packaging, because wafer-level packaging is more like a wafer manufacturing process, so compared to OSAT manufacturers, wafer manufacturers have a unique advantage in advanced packaging.
From the package to today's advanced package, in terms of technology, fabs are more dominant. Even the advanced packaging concept was not proposed by OSAT manufacturers earlier, but was first born in TSMC in 2009.
It is understood that at that time, the TSMC team found that when the lead line width on the traditional packaging substrate exceeded 50μm, and as the amount of data transmission between the logic chip and the memory chip became larger and larger, the high line width would cause about 40% of the transmission speed and 60% of the power consumption of the entire chip to be wasted. If the traditional substrate is replaced by a silicon intermediation layer, and the logic chip and memory chip are stacked and packaged, the lead width can be reduced to less than 0.4μm, and most of the lost transmission speed and power consumption can be recovered. Since then, advanced packaging has gradually "surfaced" and subsequently become the focus of technology in the field of semiconductors.
Yole data shows that from 2020 to 2026, the advanced packaging market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of about 7.9%. By 2025, revenue in this market will exceed $42 billion, which is almost three times the expected growth rate of the traditional packaging market. In the post-Moore era, advanced packaging has become the focus of market attention.
Advanced package "Three Kingdoms Kill"
Wafer manufacturers with unique advantages have also "sniffed" the dividends of the advanced packaging market and have begun to vigorously layout the advanced packaging field. Wafer manufacturers represented by TSMC, Samsung, and Intel are increasing their investment in advanced packaging and frequently launching innovative technologies in the field of advanced packaging.
In 2015, TSMC won Apple's big order with InFO packaging technology. In the next few years, TSMC also continued to exert efforts in the field of advanced packaging, successively launching Technologies such as CoWoS and SOIC 3D to improve its layout in the field of advanced packaging. In order to further expand its impact on advanced packaging, in 2020, TSMC integrated its 3D IC technology platforms such as SoIC, InFO and CoWoS and named it 3D Fabric. According to TSMC, in terms of product design, 3D Fabric provides the greatest flexibility, integrating logic Chiplet, high-bandwidth memory (HBM), and special process chips to achieve a variety of innovative product designs in all directions.
As A strong rival of TSMC in the field of wafer foundry, Samsung's layout in advanced packaging has not shown weakness, and even released harsh words to compete with TSMC in the field of chip advanced packaging in 2022. The competition between Samsung and TSMC has expanded all the way from the process to the field of advanced packaging. Despite a late start, Samsung has been relentlessly updating heterogeneous packaging technology in recent years.
In 2018, Samsung launched the first I-Cube2 solution, gaining a foothold in the field of advanced packaging, followed by the 3D stacking design of the X-Cube solution in 2020. In November 2021, Samsung announced that it had jointly developed hybrid substrate cube (H-Cube) technology with AlkorTechnology, its latest 2.5D packaging solution, which greatly lowered the barrier to entry for markets such as high-performance computing, making Samsung famous in the field of advanced packaging.
In recent years, Intel has frequently encountered "difficult delivery" in the research and development of advanced processes. This also makes Intel gradually open up the gap with TSMC and Samsung in advanced processes. Therefore, Intel has paid more and more attention to the research and development of advanced packaging, and has begun to continuously develop advanced packaging technology.
In July 2021, Intel announced the most detailed process and packaging technology development route ever, and said that it will work together in chip process technology and advanced packaging to return to the peak of the industry by 2025. On December 17, 2021, Intel said it would invest $7 billion to expand production capacity at its advanced semiconductor packaging plant in Penang, Malaysia. Intel has seen advanced packaging technology as key to its revitalization.
Traditional packaging plants have not been replaced
It has to be admitted that many non-traditional OSAT manufacturers have entered the advanced packaging industry, giving traditional OSAT manufacturers a lot of competitive pressure.
Compared with other technology fields, the OSAT field has relatively low profit margins and fierce competition, and competition is intensifying as wafer manufacturers have entered the advanced packaging field.
Li Chunxing, chief technology officer of Changdian Technology, believes that OSAT manufacturers and fabs will overlap in packaging technology, which makes OSAT's business more uncertain in terms of investment expenditure and return on investment, and there may also be competition in the purchase of manufacturing infrastructure dedicated to automation.
However, in the field of advanced packaging, are traditional OSAT manufacturers really going to be "slapped to death on the beach" by wafer manufacturers? This is not the case.
Zhao Chao said that although wafer-level packaging technology is very hot, it does not mean that the traditional packaging process will be eliminated, in the process of chip production, in any case, the chip finally needs to be the traditional packaging of the back road, and the OSAT manufacturers' experience accumulation in the back road traditional packaging process is also difficult to be easily replaced, and the two have their own advantages.
It is understood that the application of advanced processes is also the most important watershed between TSMC and other fabs and OSAT, TSMC and other fabs lock in the high-end products of the top of the pyramid chip factory, while other non-advanced product packaging and testing business will choose AMKOR, Changdian, Riyueguang and other OSAT manufacturers.
Taking AiP as an example, AiP packaging technology is to integrate the antenna into the chip, and its advantage is that it can simplify the system design, which is conducive to miniaturization and low cost. In this regard, although there are studies on wafer foundries, the cost control is not as good as that of the head OSAT enterprises, and the operating space in the bargaining is relatively small, so the OSAT manufacturers throw most of the AiP orders.
In addition, the layout of wafer foundries in advanced packaging is different from the operating model and business model of OSAT, and the customer base and product application are also different. In addition, OSAT manufacturers also have the advantages of diversified products, low cost, and fast time to market, and the head OSAT manufacturers with rich technical reserves can also form a differentiated competition with the previous foundry companies, and are not afraid of the risk of being replaced.
It can be seen that in terms of advanced packaging, wafer foundries and traditional OSAT manufacturers have their own advantages, which does not mean that OSAT manufacturers should be replaced.
New models of cooperation have been introduced
Therefore, Zhao Chao believes that the relationship between OSAT and fabs has also spawned a new cooperation model - wafer manufacturers and OSAT manufacturers work together to carry out research and development of advanced packaging technologies.
It is understood that the cooperation between SMIC and OST manufacturer Changdian Technology is a typical case, the two are the most representative enterprises in the field of wafer foundry and packaging and testing in China, and the joint efforts of the two have greatly promoted the research and development of advanced packaging technology in China.
Samsung's recently launched 2.5D package solution "H-Cube" is also developed by Samsung in cooperation with OSAT manufacturers Anku. Jin-Young Kim, vice president of the Global Research and Development Center (R&D) of technology companies, said that the successful cooperation in research and development proves the importance of foundries and OSAT manufacturers as partners.
In the field of advanced packaging, the existence of a competitive relationship between wafer manufacturers and OSAT manufacturers is not only the existence of a competitive relationship, but in fact, the two can cooperate with each other to form a complementary relationship and jointly create a better future in the field of advanced packaging.
Author 丨 Shen Cong
Edited by Lian Xiaodong
American editor 丨 Maria