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Glass Substrate Chip Packaging Nears Qualification, Commercial Product Delays Persist
Key points
- Absolics' glass substrate samples are in final reliability evaluation in Taiwan.
- Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Sumitomo Chemical formed a $310 million glass-core joint venture.
- Intel's deployment of glass substrates is now projected around 2030.
- All timelines for glass substrate mass production have slipped from initial projections.
Glass Substrates in Final Qualification
Glass-core substrates, designed to replace organic chip packaging, are currently undergoing final qualification. Absolics, a material manufacturer, announced that samples from its Covington, Georgia plant are in package-level reliability evaluation in Taiwan, with results expected by year-end. This marks a significant step towards commercial readiness for the technology.
Persistent Delays in Commercial Adoption
Despite reaching final qualification stages, glass-core substrates have not yet been integrated into a commercial product. Initial plans for mass production by Absolics in the first half of 2024 have been missed, and previous claims of AMD adopting glass substrates for CPUs between 2025 and 2026 have not materialized. Intel, a key proponent of the technology, has shifted its own deployment timeline to approximately 2030, focusing on licensing patents and demonstrating prototypes in the interim.
Industry Investments and Partnerships
The industry continues to invest in glass substrate technology. Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Sumitomo Chemical's Dongwoo Fine-Chem formalized a 482.1 billion won ($310 million) joint venture, targeting first production in the second half of 2027. These investments underscore the long-term potential seen in glass substrates despite current delays.
Technical Advantages and Manufacturing Hurdles
Glass-core substrates offer technical benefits such as 10 times the interconnect density of organic substrates and a 50% reduction in pattern distortion. They also reduce warpage by about half compared to organic cores due to tunable thermal expansion coefficients. However, manufacturing challenges persist, including chipping and cracking during drilling and dicing, and difficulties in metallizing vias below 10 microns and maintaining nanometer-scale flatness across large panels.
✨ This summary was generated by AI from the outlets' reporting listed below. It is not independently verified and may contain errors — check the original sources. How BrevFeed works →
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Reporting from
Glass-core substrates, intended to replace organic chip packaging, are in final qualification by Absolics, but commercial product integration continues to be delayed. Despite technical advantages like increased interconnect density and reduced warpage, manufacturing challenges such as chipping and flatness control are contributing to the slower-than-anticipated adoption.