01
The delivery time of the carrier board is difficult to solve, and the OSAT factory suggests to change the packaging form

The IC packaging and testing industry is operating at full speed. The senior officials of the outsourcing packaging and testing (OSAT) said frankly that in 2021 it is estimated that the lead frame for wire bonding, the substrate for packaging, and the epoxy resin for packaging (Epoxy) are expected to be used in 2021. The supply and demand of materials such as Molding Compund are tight, and it is estimated that it will be the norm in 2021.

Among them, for example, the high-efficiency computing (HPC) chips used in FC-BGA packages, and the shortage of ABF substrates has caused leading international chip manufacturers to continue to use the package capacity method to ensure the source of materials. In this regard, the latter part of the packaging and testing industry revealed that they are relatively less demanding IC products, such as memory main control chips (Controller IC).

Originally in the form of BGA packaging, packaging and testing plants continue to recommend chip customers to change materials and adopt CSP packaging based on BT substrates, and strive to fight for the performance of NB/PC/game console CPU, GPU, server Netcom chips, etc. , You still have to adopt ABF carrier board.

In fact, the carrier board delivery period has been relatively elongated since the past two years. Due to the recent surge in LME copper prices, the lead frame for both IC and power modules has increased in response to the cost structure. As for the ring For materials such as oxygen resin, the packaging and testing industry also warned as early as the beginning of 2021, and the tight supply and demand situation after the lunar new year will become more obvious.

The previous ice storm in Texas in the United States impacted the supply of packaging materials such as resin and other upstream chemical raw materials. Several major Japanese material manufacturers, including Showa Denko (which has been integrated with Hitachi Chemical), will still only have about 50% of the original material supply from May to June. , And the Sumitomo system reported that due to the excess production capacity available in Japan, ASE Investment Holdings and its XX products, which purchase packaging materials from Sumitomo Group, will not be affected too much for the time being.

After the upstream foundry production capacity is tight and confirmed by the industry, the chip industry estimates that although the scheduled capacity plan has been almost all the way to the next year, the allocation is roughly determined. The most obvious obstacle to the chip shipment barrier lies in the later stage. Packaging and testing.

The tight production capacity of traditional wire-bonding (WB) packaging will be difficult to solve all the way to the end of the year. Flip-chip packaging (FC) has also maintained its utilization rate at a high-end level due to the demand for HPC and mining chips, and FC packaging has to be more mature. The normal supply of measurement substrates is strong. Although the most lacking is ABF boards, and BT boards are still acceptable, the packaging and testing industry expects that the tightness of BT substrates will also come in the future.

In addition to the fact that automotive electronic chips were cut into the queue, the packaging and testing plant followed the lead of foundry industry. At the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second quarter, it first received the order of wafers from the international chip vendors in 2020, and the new ones were added in 2021. The wafer production capacity Austrian aid is also estimated to begin in the second quarter. Since the packaging and testing process is about 1 to 2 months late from the foundry, the large test orders will be fermented around the middle of the year.

Looking ahead, although the industry expects that the tight packaging and testing capacity will not be easy to solve in 2021, at the same time, to expand production, it is necessary to cross the wire bonding machine, cutting machine, placement machine and other packaging equipment required for packaging. The delivery time has also been extended to nearly one. Years and other challenges. However, the packaging and testing industry still emphasizes that the increase in packaging and testing foundry costs is still “a meticulous project” that must take into account medium and long-term customer relationships. Therefore, we can also understand the current difficulties of IC design customers to ensure the highest production capacity, and give customers suggestions such as material changes, package changes, and price negotiation, which are also based on the basis of long-term mutually beneficial cooperation with customers.

02
The mining boom has repeatedly tightened the production capacity of BT substrates
The global mining boom has reignited, and mining chips have once again become a hot spot in the market. The kinetic energy of supply chain orders has been increasing. IC substrate manufacturers have generally pointed out that the production capacity of ABF substrates often used for mining chip design in the past has been exhausted. Changlong, without sufficient capital, cannot obtain sufficient supply. Customers generally switch to large quantities of BT carrier boards, which has also made the BT carrier board production lines of various manufacturers have been tight from the Lunar New Year to the present.

The relevant industry revealed that there are actually many kinds of chips that can be used for mining. From the earliest high-end GPUs to the later specialized mining ASICs, it is also considered a well-established design solution. Most of the BT carrier boards are used for this type of design. ASIC products. The reason why BT carrier boards can be applied to mining ASICs is mainly because these products remove redundant functions, leaving only the functions required for mining. Otherwise, products that require high computing power still have to use ABF carrier boards.

Therefore, at this stage, except for the mining chip and memory, which are adjusting the carrier board design, there is little room for replacement in other applications. Outsiders believe that due to the sudden re-ignition of mining applications, it will be very difficult to compete with other major CPU and GPU manufacturers that have queued for a long time for ABF carrier board production capacity.

Not to mention that most of the new production lines expanded by various companies have already been contracted by these leading manufacturers. When the mining boom does not know when it will suddenly disappear, mining chip companies really don’t have time to join. With the long waiting queue of ABF carrier boards, buying BT carrier boards on a large scale is the most efficient way.

Looking at the demand for various applications of BT carrier boards in the first half of 2021, although generally upward growth, the growth rate of mining chips is relatively astonishing. Observing the situation of customer orders is not a short-term demand. If it continues into the second half of the year, enter the BT carrier. In the traditional peak season of the board, in the case of high demand for mobile phone AP, SiP, AiP, etc., the tightness of BT substrate production capacity may further increase.

The outside world also believes that it is not ruled out that the situation will evolve into a situation where mining chip companies use price increases to grab production capacity. After all, mining applications are currently positioned as relatively short-term cooperation projects for existing BT carrier board manufacturers. Rather than being a long-term necessary product in the future like AiP modules, the importance and priority of services are still the advantages of traditional mobile phones, consumer electronics and communication chip manufacturers.

The carrier industry confessed that the accumulated experience since the first emergence of mining demand shows that the market conditions of mining products are relatively volatile, and it is not expected that the demand will be maintained for a long time. If the production capacity of BT carrier boards is really to be expanded in the future, it should also depend on it. The development status of other applications will not easily increase investment just because of the high demand at this stage.