ASE is building 15 new sites: Advanced Packaging is becoming the next major AI bottleneck - igor´sLAB

As demand for AI chips surges, the semiconductor industry is encountering a new bottleneck in advanced packaging, a critical component in the supply chain. ASE Technology Holding has announced plans t... Read original →

Advanced packaging is transitioning from a back-end afterthought to the performance bottleneck of AI chips. ASE’s aggressive $8.5B expansion—15 new sites by 2029—is a direct bet on NVIDIA’s heterogeneous integration roadmap, where HBM stacks and chiplets demand co-design between die and package. Technically, FOCoS-Bridge and panel-level packaging (310mm rectangular) will force upgrades across test equipment, materials, and EDA flows, yet fracture compatibility with legacy round-wafer infrastructure. Geopolitically, over-concentration in Taiwan, China exposes supply chain fragility; U.S. and EU subsidies for domestic OSAT could pressure ASE to localize. Competition with Amkor and Samsung’s OSAT arm is escalating into a capital arms race, with Samsung leveraging its IDM edge to bundle foundry and packaging. Within 18 months, the market will bifurcate: oversupply in basic Fan-out, but acute shortages in 3D TSV lines capable of Co-Packaged Optics—amplifying winner-takes-most dynamics.