Recently, discussions related to Intel's EMIB and TSMC's quasi-EMIB have become the focus of industry public opinion. The cost and yield advantages brought by the local silicon bridge architecture have focused market attention on the rivalry between the two 2.5D subdivision routes. However, when viewed from the perspective of the entire advanced packaging market, EMIB is merely one link among numerous technological branches.
The current advanced packaging has evolved into a complex ecosystem intertwined with multiple technologies, business models, and application markets. The differentiation of computing power demand, the reconstruction of manufacturing models, and the constraints of upstream materials and equipment jointly shape the industry's direction. The extreme performance demands of AI training chips, the large-scale demand in the edge and automotive markets, and the continuous pursuit of thin, light, and low-cost products in consumer electronics are jointly driving the continuous expansion of the market. Different technological routes are more complementary rather than simple substitutes. The redivision of the industrial value chain among wafer fabs, IDMs, and independent packaging and testing factories is the more worthy industry reality to delve into at present.
01
Computing power drives market segmentation, and diverse applications shape diverse technological demands
From the perspective of market structure, advanced packaging is no longer a mere appendage of the AI single track. High-performance computing (HPC) and AI computing power account for nearly 40% of the demand for advanced packaging, serving as the core engine driving the growth of high-end 2.5D and 3D packaging. Consumer electronics, automotive electronics, and communication storage collectively occupy more than half of the market space, forming the fundamental base of the industry. Different downstream scenarios impose completely different constraints on interconnection density, cost, reliability, and mass production scale, directly determining the survival environment for various technologies.
Flagship AI chips for large model training pursue extreme bandwidth and multi-HBM collaboration capabilities. This field is still dominated by global silicon interposer solutions. TSMC's CoWoS versions correspond to different specifications. CoWoSS targets conventional AI accelerators, while CoWoSL supports ultra-large mask size packaging, capable of accommodating more die and HBM stacking. This is also the choice of NVIDIA and AMD's flagship products. Such products do not care about the cost of individual packaging, but rather focus on signal integrity and large-scale die integration capabilities. However, the cost is high due to the lengthy process chain, expensive silicon interposer materials, and limited supply of ABF carrier boards, resulting in a long-term shortage of high-end production capacity. Leading customers lock in production capacity for more than two years in advance, making it difficult for a large number of small and medium-sized design enterprises to obtain quotas.
In the scenarios of mid-range computing power, inference chips, and in-vehicle domain controllers, performance is no longer the only yardstick. The weight of cost, delivery cycle, heat dissipation, and automotive-grade reliability has significantly increased. This is also the underlying market foundation for the attention being paid to EMIB and the similar technologies being developed by TSMC. The full name of EMIB is Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge, which means embedded multi-chip interconnection bridge. The core breakthrough of Intel's EMIB technology lies in abandoning the design of traditional full-domain silicon interposers and pioneering a new approach of local silicon bridge interconnection. This technology embeds micro silicon bridges only in key areas where multiple cores require high-speed signal interconnection, achieving high-density wiring. The majority of the chip's remaining area continues to use a mature, low-cost organic substrate architecture, fundamentally solving the pain points of traditional high-end packaging, such as high cost, low yield, and difficulty in mass production. The tiny micro silicon bridge process is highly controllable, eliminating the need for large-area precision manufacturing processes, significantly reducing raw material loss, and maintaining a stable high-level mass production yield of 98%, far exceeding traditional 2.5D packaging technology at the same stage. At the same time, the streamlined structural design effectively reduces the overall thermal resistance of the package, significantly improving the heat dissipation efficiency of the chip, making it more suitable for applications such as servers and mid-range computing power modules that operate under high load for extended periods.
Flexibility and scalability are another core advantage of EMIB technology. This technology allows for the free combination of logic cores, I/O cores, and high-speed memory cores, is compatible with HBM memory integration solutions, and can also be integrated with Intel's Foveros three-dimensional stacking technology to create a 3.5D packaging architecture that combines two-dimensional interconnect efficiency with three-dimensional integration density. Its diverse adaptability allows EMIB technology to break free from the limitations of high-end packaging being "niche and expensive", satisfying the performance requirements of mid-to-high-end heterogeneous chips while also adapting to the cost requirements of large-scale production. This fills the market gap between top-tier CoWoS packaging and traditional general-purpose packaging. As Intel gradually opens up its EMIB technology for external services, a large number of chip design manufacturers are able to achieve heterogeneous integration design at low cost, rapidly expanding the industry influence of this technology. It is understood that Intel's advanced EMIB-T packaging technology, currently under development, has achieved a technical verification yield of over 90% in Google's new TPU project for the second half of 2027, codenamed "Humufish".
TSMC has also understood the core logic and commercial value of EMIB local silicon bridge. By combining its mature RDL redistribution layer technology and wafer manufacturing advantages, it has optimized a similar EMIB technology that is compatible with its own production line, focusing on the mid-range advanced packaging market with low cost, high yield, and fast delivery.
Apart from 2.5D-related technologies, fan-out packaging remains the largest advanced packaging segment. TSMC's InFO, ASE's FOCoS, and the large-size RDL fan-out layouts developed by domestic manufacturers are widely used in products such as mobile phone main chips, RF, and network processors. They rely on mature organic RDL processes to balance cost and density, serving the massive consumer electronics and communication markets. 3D hybrid bonding technology is targeted at the next generation of vertical stacking. TSMC's SoIC, Intel's Foveros Direct, and Samsung's XCube pursue micron or even submicron bonding spacing, aiming at future HBM next-generation products and high-density core-die stacking. Currently, it is still in the gradual scaling-up stage, with yield rates, design tools, and testing all undergoing continuous refinement. In the longer term, glass interposers and panel-level packaging are seen as potential directions to break through capacity and cost constraints. However, challenges such as warpage control and substrate reliability have not yet been fully overcome, and large-scale commercialization still requires time verification.
The coexistence of different technological paths is essentially a reflection of market segmentation. No single technology can cover all needs, from flagship AI training chips to consumer electronics and automotive applications. The industry is moving away from the past stage of pursuing single technological performance indicators and shifting towards a selection logic that reverses the packaging solution based on application goals.
02
With three players competing on the same stage, the boundaries of the industry chain are being rewritten
The competition in advanced packaging is not only about the comparison of process solutions, but also about the contest of business models. The traditional packaging and testing industry is dominated by independent OSAT packaging and testing factories. However, in recent years, wafer foundries and IDM giants have made large-scale inroads into the packaging segment, resulting in a global market landscape where OSATs, wafer foundries, and IDMs compete on the same stage. The original industrial boundaries are continuously melting, and significant changes have occurred in the distribution of the value chain.
TSMC represents a typical paradigm of wafer foundries extending downstream. It integrates the front-end processes of advanced packaging technologies such as CoWoS and SoIC within its wafer fabs, turning packaging into an integrated service tied to tape-out. This is also the key to its monopoly in the high-end AI packaging market. In the past, chip design companies would hand over their designs to packaging and testing companies after tape-out, while the manufacturing of interposers for high-end 2.5D products was completed in wafer fabs, with subsequent assembly and testing being handed over to packaging and testing enterprises. On this basis, TSMC has built a complete 3D Fabric platform, covering SoIC three-dimensional hybrid bonding at the top, local silicon bridge solutions for mid-range layouts like EMIB, and retaining the mature InFO fan-out process, forming a complete technology matrix covering high, mid, and multiple scenarios. This consolidates customer loyalty and copes with the competitive pressure brought by Intel's IFS external business.
Intel follows the IDM open route. EMIB and Foveros initially served its own CPU and GPU products, and gradually opened up to the outside world as the IFS foundry business progressed. Its advantage lies in its understanding of architecture, forming a complete system from chip definition, packaging platform to EDA tools. However, its weakness is that the accumulation of external customer ecosystem is still under construction, and it cannot deeply bind massive tape-out orders like TSMC. Samsung also relies on IDM accumulation, with ICube and XCube combining its own HBM storage advantages to enter heterogeneous integration. However, the pace of expanding external logic chip customers is relatively slow, with more services for internal product lines and a small number of customized projects.
The independent OSAT packaging and testing manufacturers, represented by ASE, Amkor, and JCET, occupy a special position in the industry. After the front-end interposer manufacturing for high-end 2.5D was mastered by wafer fabs, OSATs mainly undertake the back-end assembly and testing business, while maintaining a large basic market share in fan-out, flip chip, power, and automotive packaging. ASE and Amkor are also advancing their own 2.5D solutions to undertake some overflow orders. Domestic companies such as JCET, Tongfu Microelectronics, and Huatian Technology continue to increase their investment in large-size fan-out and 2.5D research and development, focusing on the automotive, server, and network chip markets. Although there is still a gap between them and the top three players in the high-end frontier, they are highly competitive in the vast mid-range market.
The game of three forces has brought about a significant change: advanced packaging is no longer a simple back-end process, but a systematic engineering that spans chip definition, die partitioning, wafer fabrication, assembly, and testing. When chip design companies work on die architecture, they must consider the capabilities of the packaging platform, the selection of interposers or silicon bridges, and the constraints of carrier board supply in advance. Packaging has already moved forward into the early design stage of chips. This change has also raised the industry threshold. New entrants not only need to buy equipment and build production lines, but also require supporting IP, EDA tools, and testing solutions. Pure process stacking is difficult to form complete competitiveness. At the same time, upstream materials and equipment are becoming a common bottleneck for the entire industry. The supply constraints of ABF carrier boards, high-precision die bonding equipment, and special substrates, whether it is CoWoS or EMIB route, all have to face the practical constraints of the supply chain together.
03
Comprehensive layout and multiple path options have become the future development trend
Market public opinion is easily trapped in a linear narrative, obsessed with discussing whether technology A will replace technology B. However, when returning to industrial reality, capacity constraints, cost contradictions, design ecology, and yield control are the core variables that truly determine the pace of technology implementation. Even if the partial silicon bridge solution has a good cost advantage, it does not mean that it will quickly overturn the existing landscape. The maturity of a packaging platform depends not only on the architecture principle, but also on supporting EDA tools, known good die (KGD) testing, substrate coordination, and reliability verification. It takes a long cycle for a large number of chip customers to complete product verification and certification, and there is a huge gap between technical concepts and large-scale mass production.
In the coming period, the market will continue to maintain a situation where multiple routes coexist in the long term. The full-silicon interposer will still hold its position in the top-tier flagship computing power market, supporting large model training chips. The partial silicon bridge solution will expand its share in the mid-range inference, server, and some AI acceleration chip fields. Fan-out packaging will continue to dominate the mainstream market of consumer electronics and communication chips. 3D hybrid bonding will gradually penetrate into storage stacking and high-density core-particle scenarios. Glass interposers and panel-level packaging will continue to iterate, waiting for the maturity of process conditions to unleash their potential. Various technologies are not mutually exclusive, and there may even be integration between them. For example, the combination of partial silicon bridge and RDL interposer, and the pairing of 3D stacking and 2.5D interconnection can be flexibly combined according to product requirements.
The competitive dimension is also undergoing a shift, no longer solely focusing on the parameter indicators of interconnect spacing. The weight of unit bandwidth cost, delivery cycle, complete design ecosystem, and supply chain resilience continues to rise. In the past, the supply of advanced packaging was highly concentrated, with top customers occupying the vast majority of high-end production capacity, leaving small and medium-sized design enterprises with limited choices. With the maturity of multiple platforms, customers will have more selection space, enabling them to weigh and choose between full silicon interposers, local silicon bridges, fan-outs, and other solutions based on their own chip positioning, reducing their dependence on a single platform.
For the entire semiconductor industry, advanced packaging bears the responsibility of enhancing performance in the post-Moore era, but the industry also needs to view technological hype rationally. The industry discussions surrounding EMIB and quasi-EMIB essentially reflect the strong demand for "cost reduction in computing power" across the entire market. From high-end AI computing power to automotive and consumer electronics, from wafer fabs and IDMs to independent packaging and testing, from materials and equipment to EDA tools, the collaborative progress of the entire chain will truly drive the continuous evolution of the heterogeneous integration industry.