Under the dual pressure of the interference of the epidemic and the rebound of demand, the semiconductor supply chain is under pressure, and the shortage of production capacity exists in almost every link of the industrial chain, and cannot be solved in the short term.
Among them, the problem of packaging substrate out of stock has lasted for a long year, and related enterprises have also started production expansion plans as early as 2019, but the demand suddenly increased, and the situation of short supply is still serious.
Ji micro network recently reported in the "FC-BGA packaging substrate delivery period of up to a year, core material ABF out of stock will last until 2022", because of the outbreak, CPU, GPU and other LSI chip demand doubled, thus driving the large size of FC-BGA substrate last year was in a state of capacity shortage.
Industry insiders point out that, from the current market situation, large size FC-BGA substrate is the most serious out of stock, other conventional packaging substrate is also out of stock, the delivery period is basically in three months to half a year, some even a year.
Domestic manufacturers accelerate to break out of the encircle and expand production
In fact, from 2011 to 2018, packaging substrate technology has continued to develop, but the market demand is basically flat, therefore, the industry as a whole did not carry out large-scale expansion.
Benefit from the development of 5G, AI, autonomous driving, big data and other industries, the demand for high-end chips is booming. The market demand for packaging substrate began to develop rapidly at the end of 2019, and the specifications are also gradually upgraded. The demand for high-value IC packaging substrate with larger size, higher level number, stronger function and more complex design has increased significantly.
Starting in 2019, Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers have begun to announce production expansion. In terms of ABF substrate, Taiwan manufacturers such as Xinxing Electronics Co., Ltd., Jingshuo Technology Co., Ltd., and Aotus Chongqing Factory have begun to expand their production, while domestic manufacturers such as Shennan Circuit Co., Ltd., Xingsen Technology Co., Ltd., Zhuhai Yueya Co., Ltd., have focused on BT substrate.
In fact, Shennan Circuit, Zhuhai Yueya, Xingsen Technology, Huajin, Anzielis and other domestic manufacturers have also laid out the FC-BGA substrate business with ABF as the medium. According to insiders, Yueya has already reached the stage of proofing, which should make the fastest progress. It has the capability and only needs to expand production. Several other companies also have plans to build factories, which are still in the research and development stage.
Huajin Semiconductor announced on March 26, the company in the FC-BGA substrate packaging technology field through years of investment and technology accumulation, has formed a large substrate design, simulation, key process development and small batch manufacturing and other integrated standard process, to fill the large size FC-BGA domestic process field blank.
According to the disclosure, Huajin Semiconductor is one of the first companies in China to develop and realize the small-batch mass production of FC-BGA substrate with ABF as the medium. Huajin has accumulated rich experience in the development of key materials of high-density and large-size FC-BGA packaging substrate. Using SAP process, Huajin Semiconductor successfully prepared 8-layer large-size FC-BGA substrate and passed the electrical test.
In the aspect of BT substrate, the industry pointed out that the domestic packaging substrate manufacturers in part of the product line, has been accompanied by the growth of domestic chip design companies and packaging plants and a breakthrough, part of the enterprise is to serve global customers.
Industry insiders further pointed out that Zhuhai Yueya's core technology Via Bar process has achieved the world's leading position in radio frequency amplifier, has long been a supplier of Apple, and is also in the world's leading position in digital currency packaging.
At the same time, Shennan Circuit has made a good breakthrough in the fields of MEMS, SENSor substrate, storage substrate and RF substrate, and Xingsen Technology has made a good breakthrough in the field of memory substrate. As long as the above-mentioned manufacturers expand their production, the shortage of BT substrate can be solved easily.
In addition to the more mature development of the above technology manufacturers, a large number of domestic PCB manufacturers such as Chongda Technology, Zhongjing Electronics began to layout packaging substrate business.
Upstream materials and equipment are bottlenecks and shortages will continue
However, it is not easy to enter the packaging substrate field from PCB. IC packaging substrate is a high-investment, asset-heavy business with high barriers in capital, technology and customers.
According to people familiar with the matter, new entrants are likely to require considerable capital investment, as well as considerable time to build technology, team building and customer certification. From the perspective of Shennan Circuit and Xingsen Technology from the research and development of the project to mass production of packaging substrate products, the new domestic manufacturers in the packaging substrate field need at least three years to enter the market.
Therefore, compared with new entrants, the expansion of manufacturers that have made a breakthrough in the market can solve the problem of industrial shortage more quickly.
According to Taiwan media reports, Taiwan carrier manufacturers Xinxing, Nanpower, Jingsuo in ABF substrate orders have been arranged until 2023, BT substrate orders are full until August.
Therefore, the packaging substrate industry market demand is strong, the next few years of competition pattern is good, the major manufacturers on the expansion of the attitude is more positive, the prospect is predictable.
However, the reality is that the domestic replacement of packaging substrate progress is relatively slow, the process, materials, equipment are subject to overseas, which is also the domestic manufacturers to expand production, improve the process capacity, reduce the cost of resistance.
Industry insiders said that at present, domestic manufacturers have gradually improved their technological capabilities, but they need to import materials and equipment.
In the production process of substrate, copper foil, copper clad plate, semi-cured sheet, solder resistance, photoresist and other materials need to be used. However, these materials are currently mainly monopolized by Japan and the United States, and domestic substitutes are very few, especially ABF materials.
"In fact, upstream materials and equipment invention, domestic manufacturers have some layout, such as Sheng Yisheng Technology has been able to produce BT resin materials, but because of the high risk, the recognition of the terminal is relatively low, packing factories and terminals are not willing to try and switch domestic products.
The same is true for equipment, which has to be imported, but the delivery time for key equipment, including exposure machines and laser drilling machines, has already reached a year, people familiar with the matter said.
Industry insiders pointed out that based on the current delivery period of equipment, it will take about a year for an order to be actually introduced into the equipment, so even with the current expansion, the new capacity will not be opened until 2022 at the soonest.
It is worth mentioning that there is a very long ramp-up time from production to full capacity. Take Shennan Circuit as an example, the packaging substrate factory built by its IPO project has been in trial production in mid-2019, and is expected to achieve production at the end of Q2 2022.
Shennan circuit also pointed out that compared with PCB, packaging substrate due to the precision of the product, process difficulty, customer requirements are relatively higher, the factory will be relatively longer climbing time, usually 1-2 years.
At present, from the perspective of the production expansion schedule of major manufacturers, the substantial release of new capacity will be in 2022, and the market shortage may be relieved after 2023. Therefore, the overall market situation this year will still be in a state of short supply.
