ABF carrier plate is out of stock, and the factory expands production capacity

With the growth of 5g, AI and high-performance computing markets, the demand for IC carriers, especially ABF carriers, has exploded. However, due to the limited capacity of relevant suppliers, the supply of ABF carriers is in short supply and the price continues to rise. The industry expects that the problem of tight supply of ABF carrier plates may continue until 2023. In this context, four large plate loading plants in Taiwan, Xinxing, Nandian, jingshuo and Zhending, have launched ABF plate loading expansion plans this year, with a total capital expenditure of more than NT $65 billion in mainland and Taiwan plants. In addition, Japan’s ibiden and shinko, South Korea’s Samsung motor and Dade electronics have further expanded their investment in ABF carrier plates.

The demand and price of ABF carrier board rise sharply, and the shortage may continue until 2023
IC substrate is developed on the basis of HDI board (high-density interconnection circuit board), which has the characteristics of high density, high precision, miniaturization and thinness. As the intermediate material connecting the chip and the circuit board in the chip packaging process, the core function of ABF carrier board is to carry out higher density and high-speed interconnection communication with the chip, and then interconnect with large PCB board through more lines on the IC carrier board, which plays a connecting role, so as to protect the integrity of the circuit, reduce leakage, fix the line position It is conducive to better heat dissipation of the chip to protect the chip, and even embed passive and active devices to achieve certain system functions.

At present, in the field of high-end packaging, IC carrier has become an indispensable part of chip packaging. The data show that at present, the proportion of IC carrier in the overall packaging cost has reached about 40%.
Among IC carriers, there are mainly ABF (Ajinomoto build up film) carriers and BT carriers according to the different technical paths such as CLL resin system.
Among them, ABF carrier board is mainly used for high computing chips such as CPU, GPU, FPGA and ASIC. After these chips are produced, they usually need to be packaged on ABF carrier board before they can be assembled on larger PCB board. Once the ABF carrier is out of stock, major manufacturers including Intel and AMD cannot escape the fate that the chip cannot be shipped. The importance of ABF carrier can be seen.

Since the second half of last year, thanks to the growth of 5g, cloud AI computing, servers and other markets, the demand for high-performance computing (HPC) chips has increased greatly. Coupled with the growth of market demand for home office / entertainment, automobile and other markets, the demand for CPU, GPU and AI chips on the terminal side has increased greatly, which has also pushed up the demand for ABF carrier boards.