① Glass substrate packaging is regarded as the next generation of semiconductor packaging technology. AI is driving the further implementation of glass substrate packaging, and individual stocks in the industry chain have continued to rise and fall; ② The industry said that glass substrate packaging implementation has difficulties of processing difficulty and high cost; ③ Vogg Optoelectronics, Sanchao New Materials, Lehman Optoelectronics, etc. indicate that products related to glass substrates for semiconductor packaging have not yet been shipped or have small shipments.
Finance Association, May 20 (Reporter Wang Biwei) Due to its advantages such as better thermal stability, glass substrates are regarded as next-generation semiconductor packaging materials. Recently, some media carried part of the report “AI Supply Chain — The Latest about NVDA GB200 Superchip” published by Morgan Stanley (Morgan Stanley) on May 13, adding that “Damo revealed that GB200 will use a glass substrate.”
Also affected by this news, concept stocks such as Vogue Optoelectronics, Sanchao New Materials, and Rayman Optoelectronics collectively rose and stopped last Friday; today, the popularity of glass substrate concepts has not abated. Vogue Optoelectronics (603773.SH), Wufang Optoelectronics (002962.SZ), and Rayman Optoelectronics (300162.SZ) are connected to the board, and Sanchao New Materials ((300554.SZ) rose more than 12%.
A Financial Services Association reporter called Vogue Optoelectronics, Sanchao New Materials and other related companies today and learned that their semiconductor glass substrate-related products have not yet been shipped or account for a very small proportion.
In addition, the Financial Services Association reporter looked through the Damo report and found that the article did not mention the news that GB200 will use glass substrates; the report only stated that they “saw an opportunity for glass substrates to be widely used in GPUs.” In other words, this does not mean that glass substrate packaging for semiconductors has ushered in spring.
Zhou Hua, chief analyst at CINNO Research, told CINNO Research that use scenarios that require high computing power and data processing speed, such as high-end HPC (high performance computing) and AI chips, will have higher demand for glass substrates.
Zhou Hua said that compared with traditional organic substrates, glass substrates have many advantages such as excellent thermal and mechanical stability, low thermal expansion coefficient, good heat dissipation, high flatness, high device manufacturing quality, higher interconnection density, and excellent signal transmission performance.
According to recent MarketsAndMarkets research, the global glass substrate market is expected to grow from US$7.1 billion in 2023 to US$8.4 billion in 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 3.5% from 2023 to 2028. Under the general trend of AI, at present, many major manufacturers, including Intel, AMD, and Samsung, have publicly indicated their entry into glass substrate packaging.
However, although the future is promising, there are difficulties in achieving it. Currently, glass substrates are mainly used in the manufacture of display panels, and the application of most domestic industrial chain manufacturers is limited to display scenarios for the time being. In the advanced semiconductor packaging scenario, Zhou Hua told the reporter that glass substrates have high hardness, are fragile and brittle, and are difficult to process. In particular, process control requires higher technical requirements; moreover, the cost of high-performance glass substrates is high, leading to an increase in the overall cost of the product.
Notably, the statement “GB200 will be packaged using a glass substrate” is also inaccurate. Although Damo spent a full page introducing glass substrate packaging this time, the reporter looked through the report and found that Damo did not specify that GB200 will use glass substrates; it only indicates that glass substrates are expected to be used for advanced packaging in the next two years or so.
In the domestic industrial chain, the market is already booming, but there are not many industrial chain products that can actually be used for semiconductor packaging.
A Financial Services Association reporter called Vogue Optoelectronics Securities and learned that currently its orders for glass substrates for MiniLED backlight displays continue to grow, but products related to glass substrates that can be used for semiconductor packaging have only passed verification and have not been mass-produced on a large scale.
The securities department of Sanchao New Materials said that it accounts for a very small proportion of grinding wheel products that can be used to package glass substrates. When asked if the proportion reached 1%, the person said “it is not clear and has not been confirmed.”
After today's market, Lehman Optoelectronics also announced, “Recently, the glass substrate concept has received attention from market capital. The glass substrate packaging technology described in the above information refers to the use of a glass-based carrier board instead of a traditional organic polymer carrier board for semiconductor chip packaging. It is an application in the field of semiconductor chip packaging. The company's new PM-driven glass-based packaging technology is mainly used for microLED display panel packaging and cannot be used for semiconductor chip packaging.”
Overall, glass substrate packaging is indeed recognized as the “next generation technology,” but currently the glass substrate packaging industry for semiconductors is still in its infancy. It is still unknown when glass substrates will actually occupy the market, whether they will replace organic substrates, and who will advance in the industry chain.