Advanced Semiconductor Packaging
Advanced packaging is a critical part of AI supply, along with memory and power. New capacity is slow to arrive. SK hynix aims to make high-bandwidth memory (HBM) at its new US packaging site from late 2029, still using wafers made in Korea.
Research snapshot · updated Nov 12, 2026
Core thesis
CoWoS (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate) packaging bonds HBM memory dies onto GPU substrates. TSMC controls the great majority of leading-edge advanced packaging for AI chips. CoWoS capacity – not chip design, not HBM supply, but packaging – is what paces NVIDIA GPU output; it has been the limiting step on accelerator supply through 2023–2025, with the supply-demand gap only narrowing toward ~10% across 2026. Chiplet architectures (heterogeneous integration) are the future, making packaging the new Moore’s Law.
State of the art (2026)
State of the art (2026). Advanced packaging, not transistor scaling, is the bottleneck on AI-accelerator output: TSMC's CoWoS capacity limits how many GPUs and custom XPUs the industry can ship, and TSMC has been expanding it sharply year over year while CoWoS-L (large-reticle) and SoIC (3D stacking) push interposer size and stack height. The next high-value packaging workload is optical: TSMC's COUPE process co-packages silicon photonics with the switch or accelerator, and Nvidia, Broadcom and Ayar Labs are all building on it (brief 973). The scarce tier of the AI hardware stack is the leading-edge integration process, and it sits with the foundry.
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Signal stack
Evidence stacked leading → lagging
11 signals
Signal stack
Evidence stacked leading → lagging
Technology-native KPIs
Metrics that predict trajectory, tracked over time
5 tracked
Technology-native KPIs
Metrics that predict trajectory, tracked over time
Landscape map
Who builds what, and who depends on whom
79 players · 6 layers
Landscape map
Who builds what, and who depends on whom
Catalyst calendar
Dated events that will move the position
7 ahead
Catalyst calendar
Dated events that will move the position
Technology roadmap
Milestones on the path to maturity
16 milestones
Technology roadmap
Milestones on the path to maturity
Watchlists
Companies, people and papers, each with a condition for removing it
20 · 20
Watchlists
Companies, people and papers, each with a condition for removing it
Decision frameworks
What our view means for your job
Locked
Decision frameworks
What our view means for your job
Thesis changelog
When our view changed, and why
10 updates
Thesis changelog
When our view changed, and why
Change our mind
3 disconfirming conditions
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