It is reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is working closely with NVIDIA to jointly promote the innovative research and development of glass substrate technology. This technology is expected to achieve the production of the first chips in 2025, marking a major breakthrough in semiconductor packaging technology.
According to the report, many Chinese Taiwan manufacturers regard glass substrates as "future investments", and Lithium Sheng, which has cooperated with Intel for many years, initiated the formation of the E-core System alliance of glass substrate suppliers in the relevant supply chain to grab orders from Intel and TSMC. As the AI boom moves into the next step, it's clear that glass substrates will play a huge role in the future. According to previous reports, major manufacturers are aiming at the 2025-2026 window for solutions to enter the market, and Intel and TSMC will be at the forefront.
As a revolutionary progress in the field of semiconductor packaging, glass substrate technology has been highly valued by giants in the field of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence such as NVIDIA. This technology can significantly improve the performance of chips while enabling smaller package sizes to meet the urgent market demand for high-performance, miniaturized chips.
TSMC's R&D team is working on several key steps in the glass substrate manufacturing process, including glass metallization, ABF (Ajinomoto Build-up Film) lamination process, and glass substrate cutting. Among them, the "Glass Core" formed after glass metallization is particularly critical, which involves a series of precision processes such as TGV (Through-Glass Via), wet etching, AOI (Automated Optical Inspection), coating, and electroplating.
Figure TSMC will develop glass substrates for NVIDIA, which is expected to come out in 2025
It is worth mentioning that the 515×510mm glass substrate size adopted by TSMC is the first attempt in the semiconductor and substrate manufacturing process. Glass substrates of this size are of great significance for improving production efficiency and reducing costs. However, the production speed of TGV technology has always been a bottleneck restricting the mass production of glass substrates. Currently, only Intel claims to have the ability to mass-produce glass substrates.
TSMC's R&D restart in this area heralds its potential to become a market leader alongside Intel in 2025. This advancement by TSMC is not only critical to its own technological development, but could also have a profound impact on the semiconductor industry as a whole. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing technologies, there is a growing demand for more efficient and compact chip packaging solutions, and glass substrate technology is expected to be the key to meeting these needs.
The cooperation between TSMC and NVIDIA will not only accelerate the R&D and mass production process of glass substrate technology, but also promote the entire industry to move towards higher-performance, smaller-size chip packaging technology.
TSMC's research and development of glass substrate technology is another example of its continuous innovation and leadership in the field of semiconductor packaging. With our joint efforts with partners such as NVIDIA, we look forward to the near-future production of this technology and revolutionizing the global semiconductor industry."
