Mr. Zeng Xianrui, a consultant of Asian Business Investment, reminded everyone: **There are risks, and investment needs to be more careful to avoid unnecessary risks.
1. Review of the industry cycle
The bottom of the semiconductor cycle has been built, opening a new round of upward channelThe semiconductor industry is highly correlated with social and economic development and has a strong cyclical nature. According to SIA data and WSTS statistics on global semiconductor sales, from the end of 2021, due to the impact of the epidemic, geopolitics and inflation, semiconductors have entered a downward cycle until the end of 2023, with the gradual recovery of consumer electronics and the increase in investment in computing power construction, industry, automobiles and other tracks are expected to bring new growth points, the bottom of the industry has been basically confirmed, and it will enter the upward recovery channel, and it is expected that there will be a year-on-year growth rate of more than 10% in 2024.
Semiconductor packaging and testing is an important gateway to monitor the cycle properties of semiconductorsThe packaging and testing industry is located in the downstream of the semiconductor industry chain, and its main role is to package, test and test semiconductor chips, which is capital-intensive and labor-intensive, and directly connects with downstream terminals. Therefore, like the front-end wafer end, the back-end packaging and testing industry is also an important indicator for monitoring the semiconductor cycle.
The bottom of the closed beta plate has risenAccording to WSTS data, since 2015, the year-on-year comparison of global semiconductor sales and the year-on-year growth of the three A-share packaging and testing leaders and the packaging and testing revenue of Taiwan, China can be seen that the packaging and testing sales are strongly consistent with the global semiconductor sales, so they can be used as an important indicator to monitor the semiconductor cycle attributes. In November 2023, the global semiconductor sales revenue has shown a positive year-on-year growth of 53%, showing an upward trend, it can be seen that the bottom of the current semiconductor cycle and the packaging and testing cycle has been built, and it is expected that a new round will be opened in 2024**.
2. Industry concept
Advanced packaging generally refers to packaging technology that integrates different systems into the same package to achieve more efficient system efficiencyIt is a concept derived from the advanced wafer manufacturing process, in other words, as long as the packaging technology can improve the overall performance of the chip (including transmission speed, computing speed, etc.), it can be regarded as advanced packaging.
High-density chip integration, miniaturization of volume, and lower cost can be achieved relatively easily through advanced packaging. Advanced packaging plays a more important role in improving chip integration, shortening chip distances, speeding up electrical connections between chips, and optimizing performance. It is becoming an important guarantee for the continuous improvement of system performance, and to meet the needs of "light, thin, short, small" and system integration.
Sitting between wafer fabrication ("front-end") and die packaging and test ("back-end"), advanced packaging is known as the "middle way" and includes process technologies such as rewiring (RDL), bumping (bumping), and through-silicon via (TSV), which involve process steps such as lithography, development, etching, and stripping similar to wafer fabrication.
The traditional packaging process is as follows:After the wafer is cut into die, the die is bonded to the corresponding leadframepad, and the bonding pad of the wafer is connected to the wirebond of the substrate using wires, and finally the mold (or encapsulation) is used to protect the wafer with a shell. Typical packaging methods include DIP, SOP, TSOP, QFP, etc. Conventional packages have low packaging efficiency (bare core area and substrate area), and there is a lot of room for improvement.
The main types of advanced packaging are:Flipchip, Bumping, WaferLevelPackage, 25D packaging (Interposer, RDL, etc.), 3D packaging (TSV) and other packaging technologies. At the beginning of the birth of advanced packaging, there was only WLP, 2There are several options for 5D packaging and 3D packaging, and in recent years, the development of advanced packaging has developed in all directions. Advanced packaging technology emerged in the 90s of the last century, and achieved higher density integration by means of point-and-line electrical interconnection, which greatly reduced the waste of area.
3. In the "post-Moore era", the importance of advanced packaging is highlighted, accounting for more than 50% in 25 years
The cost of advanced process design is becoming increasingly high, and the cost performance of advanced packaging is prominent. According to Moore's Law, the number of transistors inside a chip doubles every 18 to 24 months, while performance doubles. As semiconductor technology approaches its physical limits, it is becoming increasingly difficult to scale transistor sizes. According to the chip data, the chip manufacturing process has been upgraded from 65nm to 5nm, and its process has been improved by about 7 generations, while the chip design cost has increased by nearly 20 times, from 0$2.4 billion to a staggering 4$7.6 billion. The development cost of advanced process chips is becoming more and more unaffordable for chip design companies.
The pace of advanced technological progress has slowed down, and Moore's Law is unsustainable. Since the beginning of the 21st century, chips have entered the 14nm era in 2015, the 10nm era in 2017, the 7nm era in 2018, the 5nm era in 2020, and the 3nm era in 2022. According to TrendForce data, TSMC is expected to launch the 2nm process node in 2025. The global chip manufacturing process is expected to take three years to upgrade from 3nm to 2nm, which is more than a year longer than the normal Moore's Law upgrade time of 18 24 months, which also reflects Moore's Law getting closer to the physical limit. With the rising cost of advanced processes and the increasing difficulty of technology upgrading, advanced packaging is regarded as an important way to continue Moore's Law.
Disclaimer: The views are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice, and the operation is at your own risk. (Edited by Zeng Xianrui's team of Asia Business Investment Advisors, qualification number A0240622030007).