Samsung Poised to Dominate HBM Packaging with Shinkawa Partnership

Recently, Samsung announced the launch of its SAINT technology, an innovation designed to rival TSMC’s CoWoS packaging. This strategic move positions Samsung to compete in the burgeoning artificial intelligence market. Reports suggest that Samsung has already invested in a significant number of 2.5D packaging equipment, hinting at the South Korean titan’s potential to meet the substantial demands of industry giants like NVIDIA.

According to The Elec, Samsung has acquired 16 packaging machines from Japan’s Shinkawa company, seven of which have already been delivered. The company is poised to place additional orders as demand increases. Samsung aims to showcase its packaging prowess and High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) capabilities, potentially drawing NVIDIA’s attention. Given NVIDIA’s current inability to satisfy the immense AI market demand, largely due to TSMC CoWoS’s production constraints, the plan is to diversify the supply chain, with Samsung emerging as a highly probable choice.

NVIDIA’s ambitious goal is to generate up to $300 billion in revenue from the AI sector by 2027, necessitating a robust supply chain. Hence, for its next-generation GPU Blackwell, NVIDIA plans to allocate HBM3 and 2.5D packaging supply to Samsung, easing the workload on existing manufacturers like TSMC.

This development is indeed auspicious for Samsung, as it eagerly seeks to make its mark in the AI wave. By striking a deal with NVIDIA, Samsung will not only improve the financial health of its memory and advanced packaging divisions but also secure orders from companies like AMD and Tesla. This signifies Samsung’s potential to become a key player in the future, contingent on how it addresses the market’s immense needs, especially in the realms of semiconductors, packaging, and memory.