How big is the market?
Semiconductor packaging market
According to Towards Packaging report, the global semiconductor packaging market size reached US$ 41.05 billion in 2023 and is projected to hit around US$ 108.82 billion by 2033, expanding at a CAGR of 10.24% during the forecast period from 2024 to 2033.
Advanced Semiconductor Packaging Market
According to the latest “State of Advanced Packaging 2024” report released by Yole, the advanced packaging market is expected to have a compound annual growth rate of 11% from 2023 to 2029, and the market size will expand to US$69.5 billion.
TSMC changes business scope definition
Foundry 2.0
TSMC held a conference on October 18, 2024. As the boundaries between wafer manufacturing and integrated device manufacturers (IDM) become increasingly blurred, CEO C. C. Wei also redefined the semiconductor manufacturing, naming it “Foundry 2.0” , including the external memory market. By this definition, TSMC’s market share in this market last year was 28%.
Step into semiconductor packaging
After redefining foundry 2.0, TSMC’s market share in the global industry dropped to 28%. For foundry 2.0, TSMC’s definition includes in addition to semiconductor foundry, packaging, testing, mask manufacturing and others, as well as all integrated component manufacturers except memory manufacturing.
TSMC believes that under this new definition, the scale of the foundry 2.0 industry in 2023 will be nearly US$250 billion, a significant increase from the previously defined value of US$115 billion. Based on this new definition, the industry is forecast to grow by nearly 10% annually this year. TSMC also estimates that its global market share last year was 28%, and this number is expected to continue to increase this year.
Why change the business scope definition?
When changing the definition of a company’s business scope, anyone with a discerning eye knows two things:
- Reduce market share to avoid potential antitrust investigation.
- Officially announced to expand its business scope.
Heading towards the lord of packaging
After TSMC’s semiconductor foundry accounts for nearly two-thirds of the global market (see the next paragraph for the details), in addition to semiconductor foundry, TSMC is becoming the lord of packaging, especially in advanced processes, and TSMC is almost invincible.
The world’s top ten foundry companies
According to a survey by global market research firm Counter Pointre Search, in the same order as the first quarter, the top five global manufacturers in the second quarter of 2024 are in order (the percentages in brackets are market share from the second to the third quarter): TSMC (62% ->62%), Samsung (13%->13%), SMIC (6%->6%), UMC (6%->5%) and GlobalFoundries (5%->5%) .
According to a survey by global market research firm TrendForce, the order of the top five manufacturers is the same as that of Counter Pointre Search.
Updates on TSMC’s packaging business
2023 fourth quarter result
C. C. Wei, CEO of TSMC, the leading semiconductor foundry, said in the 2023 fourth quarter result conference call, the demand for advanced packaging of AI chips continues to be strong, and the shortage of supply may continue until 2025. The advanced packaging production capacity plan will continue to double in 2024, and advanced packaging will continue to expand in 2025.
Analysts asked about the progress of advanced packaging of artificial intelligence (AI) chips. Wei pointed out that the demand for advanced packaging of AI chips continues to be strong. The current situation is that production capacity is still unable to cope with strong customer demand, and the shortage of supply may continue until 2025.
Wei said that TSMC will continue to expand advanced packaging production capacity in 2024. Advanced packaging production capacity is planned to double in 2024, but supply still exceeds demand. It is expected to continue to expand production capacity in 2025.
Wei pointed out that TSMC has been deploying advanced packaging technologies for more than 10 years. It is estimated that the annual compound growth rate of advanced packaging such as CoWoS (Chip on Wafer on Substrate), 3D IC, and SoIC will exceed at least 50% within a few years. Wei said that TSMC continues to develop the next generation of CoWoS advanced packaging technology.
Relevant financial revenue indicators
TSMC stated at its third quarter 2024 conference call that the most important financial revenue indicators related to packaging in TSMC’s packaging business are as follows:
- Revenue related to the packaging business in the second quarter of 2024 reached US$2.4 billion.
- In the third quarter of 2024, revenue related to the packaging business reached US$3.2 billion, a quarterly increase of 36%.
- CoWoS packaging capacity will double in 2024.
Wall Street’s view
Comparing what TSMC said at its third quarter 2024 press conference, Wall Street analysts’ estimates are as follows (currently TSMC’s CoWoS is mostly estimated by investment institutions):
- Taking into account the substantial investment in advanced packaging in the next five years, advanced packaging will become TSMC’s second largest source of revenue, accounting for 30% of TSMC’s total revenue in the future.
- Advanced packaging currently accounts for 7% to 9% of TSMC’s total revenue.
- Citi Securities estimates that TSMC’s CoWoS production capacity by the end of 2024 will be 30,000 to 40,000 pieces per month. After purchasing Innolux Nanke’s fourth factory, the CoWoS production capacity by the end of 2025 will be increased from 60,000 to 70,000 pieces per month. 10,000 to 100,000 pieces.
- Digitiems predicts that by the end of the fourth quarter of 2025, TSMC’s monthly production capacity is expected to increase to more than 65,000 12-inch wafer equivalents.
- It is expected to reach 140,000 to 150,000 wafers in 2026.
TSMC’s packaging capacity
Wall Street estimates that TSMC’s CoWoS monthly production capacity may exceed 32,000 pieces by the end of 2024. If third parties are included, it may approach 40,000 pieces, and the monthly production capacity will be around 70,000 pieces by the end of 2025.
Jun He, vice president of operations, advanced packaging technology and services at TSMC, also revealed at the Semiconductor Exhibition that CoWoS advanced packaging production capacity is expected to have a compound annual growth rate of more than 50% from 2022 to 2026, and will continue to expand production by 2026. In the past 3 years, it used to take five years to build a factory, but now it has been shortened to two years to meet customer needs.
The DIGITIMES Research Center pointed out in the “AI Chip Special Report” published in mid-August 2024 that advanced packaging is growing faster than advanced processes. In the field of advanced packaging, AI chips are highly dependent on TSMC’s CoWoS packaging technology. Therefore, TSMC’s CoWoS 2023-2028 CoWoS The CAGR of capacity expansion will exceed 50%, and the average annual compound growth rate of advanced process expansion below 5nm in the wafer foundry industry will reach 23% from 2023 to 2028.
Packaging Industry Current Developments
Packaging market
Traditional packaging and testing plants (OSAT) are gradually falling behind in the current new generation packaging market competition. Many companies that originally focused on foundry have also begun to enter the advanced packaging market：
- TSMC’s CoWoS
- Intel’s EMIB
- Samsung’s X-Cube
Various 2.5D and 3D packages have emerged one after another and become mature, setting off a wave of competition like thousands of sails in the blue ocean of packaging. Among them, TSMC is gradually approaching the top spot in the advanced packaging market.
Packaging market share
In March 2023, according to research data from Yole Intelligence, a subsidiary of the market research and survey organization Yole Group, benefiting from the semiconductor market demand for small wafers and heterostructure integration, the sectoral packaging (FO) market is expected to have a revenue size of 2028. will reach US$3.8 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.5% between 2022 and 2028. Currently, TSMC is the largest supplier in the sector packaging market, with a market share of 76.7%.
Packaging market size
Research data from Yole Intelligence shows that the revenue of the FO market in 2022 will be US$1.86 billion, and the revenue is expected to grow to US$3.8 billion in 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.5% from 2022 to 2028.
Among them, ultra-high density fan-shaped packaging (UHD FO) will be the fastest-growing field among all market categories, with a compound annual growth rate of 30%, which is expected to grow from US$338 million in 2022 to 2028. of US$1.63 billion. In addition, the top three outsourced packaging and testing factories, including Sunlight Investment Control, Aker and China Jiangsu RMC, together with TSMC and other manufacturers, will capture more than 90% of the global FO market share in 2022.
TSMC’s key packaging technologies
As early as 2008, TSMC established the Integrated Interconnect and Packaging Technology Integration Department (IIPD) to enter advanced packaging.
CoWoS
In recent years, TSMC has invested about 10% of its annual capital expenditures in advanced packaging, testing, photomasks, etc. It has now formed a technology array such as 2.5D packaging CoWoS, fan-out packaging InFO and 3D packaging SoIC.
In 2011, TSMC introduced its first product – CoWoS, which is one of TSMC’s secret weapons to dominate the world’s advanced packaging field. CoWoS (Chip On Wafer On Substrate) is a 2.5D integrated production technology, which is a combination of CoW and WoS: CoW is stacking wafers on wafers (Chip-on-Wafer), and WoS is the wafer on the substrate. Wafer-on-Substrate, integrated into CoWoS.
The core of CoWoS is to stack different chips on the same silicon interposer to interconnect multiple chips. In the silicon interposer, TSMC uses technologies such as micro-bumps (μBmps) and through-silicon vias (TSV) to replace traditional wire bonding for inter-die connections, greatly improving interconnect density and data transmission bandwidth.
CoWoS technology achieves the goals of improving system performance, reducing power consumption, and shrinking package size, thereby enabling TSMC to maintain its leadership in subsequent packaging technologies. This is also the main packaging technology for the currently hot HBM memory, Chiplet and so on.
Due to the high price, TSMC’s CoWoS packaging only received orders from FPGA manufacturer Xilinx. This was also the only order received by TSMC’s advanced packaging project team in 2012.
INFO
In this regard, TSMC decided to “subtract” CoWoS and developed a cheap version of CoWoS technology, namely InFO technology.
InFO packaging replaces the silicon interposer in CoWoS packaging with polyamide film material, thereby reducing unit cost and packaging height. Both of these are important criteria for the success of InFO technology in mobile applications and HPC markets.
Due to the introduction of InFO technology, Apple’s iPhone7 and iPhone 7Plus processors used InFO packaging technology. This also became a key factor in TSMC’s subsequent monopoly on Apple’s A-series processor orders.
The product that really detonated CoWoS packaging was the AI chip. In 2016, Nvidia launched the first GPU chip GP100 using CoWoS packaging, kicking off the global AI boom; in 2017, Google and Intel products were successively handed over to TSMC for manufacturing and using CoWoS packaging.
SoIC
In addition, TSMC also released an innovative system integration single-chip multi-chip 3D stacking technology – SoIC.
SoIC is a new generation of multi-die stacking technology developed based on TSMC’s CoWoS and multi-wafer stacking (WoW) packaging technologies, which provide excellent designs when mixing and matching different die functions, sizes and technology nodes. flexibility.
The launch of SoIC also marks that TSMC has the ability to directly produce 3D ICs for customers. Compared with 2.5D packaging solutions, SoIC has higher bump density, faster transmission speed and lower power consumption.
In 2020, TSMC announced that it would merge its 2.5D and 3D packaging products into a comprehensive brand, 3DFabric, to further deeply integrate process and packaging technology to strengthen competitiveness.
How futuristic?
Wall Street estimates
Research organization ALETHEIA asserts that TSMC is not only a leader in advanced manufacturing processes, but advanced packaging will also take off in 2025, and is expected to become the largest packaging service provider, making it a unique presence in the semiconductor industry.
Thanks to the accelerated adoption of the Chiplet architecture and the advancement of 2.5D/3D packaging technology, TSMC’s advanced packaging production capacity in 2026 will be ten times that of 2023, and will reach 15 times that of 2023 in 2027.
TSMC’s Outlook
TSMC emphasized that 3D IC is a key method to integrate AI chip memory and logic chips. It is estimated that the global semiconductor market will become a trillion industry in 2030, with HPC and AI being the key driving forces, accounting for 40%, making AI chips a key driving force for 3D IC packaging.
Price increase
On November 5, 2024, according to the latest report from Morgan Stanley, TSMC is considering raising prices for its 3nm process and CoWoS advanced packaging process to cope with the surge in market demand. TSMC plans to implement price increases in 2025. It is expected that the price of the 3nm process will increase by up to 5%, while the price of CoWoS packaging may increase by 10% to 20%.
This fully demonstrates that TSMC has the power to increase prices in this field, which is a characteristic of a typical company with a moat.
Crazy factory expansion
Current factories
TSMC’s CoWoS production capacity is all in Taiwan, with a total of five advanced packaging and testing plants, located in Longtan, Hsinchu, Zhunan, Taichung, and Tainan.
Factories under construction
Construction of the first P1 plant in Chiayi started in May. Suspected heritage ruins were excavated during the construction process. The official answer is that the relevant cleanup work will be completed in October 2024. The planned installation of TSMC Chiayi’s advanced packaging plant in the third quarter of 2025 will not be affected. According to previous plans, TSMC will build two CoWoS advanced packaging plants in Chiayi, with mass production originally planned for 2028.
The Zhunan Advanced Packaging Factory (AP6) has been officially opened in June 2023. After a year of operation, with the equipment moved to the AP6C factory, it has become TSMC’s largest CoWoS base. In the third quarter, the monthly CoWoS production capacity doubled, by 17,000 pieces increased to 33,000 pieces.
In addition to the AP6C in the Zhunan factory, the Taichung factory, which originally only undertook OS post-production processes, will also gradually convert to CoWoS.
Table for existing and future planned factories
In addition to actively carrying out global expansion of general wafer factories, in recent years, TSMC has also extended its factory expansion to the field of semiconductor packaging. For the details of this part, as well as the list of TSMC’s current and future planned factories, the focus of production, the official completion timetable and other details, please refer to my post of: “”How many fabs and houses does TSMC have currently and in the future?“
The latest packaging factory announced
TSMC announced in August 2024 that it had purchased Innolux’s Tainan 4 fab (5.5-generation fab), sparking heated discussion in the market. In mid-October 2024, it was reported in the industry that TSMC had decided to purchase another old Innolux factory in Nanke, mainly to meet the demand for CoWoS driven by AI. The industry estimates that after the purchase of the plant, the fastest timetable will be 2026.
Factories outside Taiwan
On November 11, 2024, Taiwanese media even reported that demand for TSMC’s advanced packaging remains high, and there are reports from the semiconductor supply chain that in order to solve the pressure of insufficient supply, TSMC plans to consider setting up CoWoS factories in the United States and Japan to meet local demand.
I am the author of the original text, the essence of this story was originally featured on Smart Magazine, Issue of December 2024
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