JPMorgan believes that the increase in GB200 production capacity will slow down in the second half of 2024, but is expected to expand significantly in 2025. Although there will be production challenges in the early stages, it is expected that the Blackwell-related GPU shipment volume will still reach about 4.5 million units in 2025. It is expected that Taiwan Semiconductor's revenue will remain relatively stable.
Recently,$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$The market has questioned the Blackwell supply chain delay due to delayed shipment of B200.
In the latest research report of JPMorgan, some challenges regarding B100/B200 chips and packaging (CoWoS-L), board-level design, and system-level issues were identified for Nvidia.
Despite facing production challenges initially, it is expected that Blackwell-related GPUs will still reach over 4.5 million units in 2025. Please use your Futubull account to access the feature.
What is the problem?
The B100/B200 N4 chip (GB100 chip) has some challenges, mainly in finding two identical chips to place in the B200 CoWoS packaging, which have very high performance (high speed grade) and power threshold. This may require slightly relaxing the performance threshold of the product. However, no serious problems have been found that would lead to major redesign or multiple quarter delays.
Additionally, due to the low yield of intermediate layer/LSI manufacture based on RDL, the CoWoS-L yield is still low and unstable (JPMorgan believes it is only about 60% currently, far less than the 90% or more of CoWoS-S). CoWoS-L process has graphite film for substrate-level heat dissipation, but some material deformation challenges have also led to some production losses.
This may lead to:
B100 may be phased out and replaced by B200A: the low-end B100 products will be replaced by slightly lower-performance B200A. B200A uses a smaller package to alleviate CoWoS-L production capacity pressure. The introduction of B200A will increase the demand for CoWoS-S by 0.05-0.06 million wafers in the next 2-3 quarters.
The capacity expansion of GB200 may slow down in the second half of 2024: the capacity expansion of GB200 may slow down in the second half of 2024, but is expected to expand significantly in 2025. JPMorgan believes that upstream shipments will begin in the fourth quarter of 2024, but due to the production capacity issues of CoWoS-L, total shipments may be limited. The total shipment of GB200 is expected to be between 0.4-0.5 million units in 2024 (compared to the previously expected 0.6 million units or more).
The shipping volume of H200 is expected to increase slightly in the second half of 2024 (up to an increase of 0.5-0.6 million units).
Overall shipment of the Blackwell series: The shipment of Blackwell series GPU is expected to reach over 4.5 million units in 2025, however, it still faces initial production capacity challenges.
Changes in Blackwell product portfolio and liquid cooling supply chain
Changes in Nvidia's product line: Nvidia will heavily promote H200 servers in the second half of 2024, and it is expected that the shipment volume will rise from Q3 2024 to Q1 2025. Looking forward to the first generation of Blackwell, Nvidia will prioritize providing GB200 servers to hyperscale users, while enterprise users may turn to GB200A Ultra.
Production impact and supply chain impact: If the GB200 capacity cannot be increased as scheduled, hyperscale users may increase their purchases of HGX B200 A and GB200A Ultra. In this case, Hon Hai as the main OEM factory may be affected by short-term stock price fluctuations. Given their diversified product lines, Advantech may be relatively less affected, while Wistron and Compal Electronics may benefit from the growth of the HGX series. Liquid cooling component suppliers such as Auras and AVC may face certain challenges if the GB200 combination declines in the future.
Impact on TSMC and semiconductor supply chain:
Benefiting from the increase in H200 production in the second half of the year, it is expected that TSMC's revenue will remain relatively stable, balancing out the launch of B100.
Benefiting from the increase in H200 production in the second half of the year, it is expected that...$Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM.US)$...revenue will remain relatively stable, offsetting the launch of B100.
Despite production issues, the adoption of CoWoS-L is expected to proceed as planned in 2025. Increased demand for CoWoS-S from nvidia could lead to supply shortages. Due to the slow ramp-up of Blackwell and GB200's capacity, Unimicron may experience delays in AI-related revenue recognition.
The adoption of B200A may accelerate the use of 12Hi HBM3e in the HBM supply chain.
Editor/Somer