In addition to semiconductor announcements, TSMC also revealed developments with advanced packaging technologies at the Technology Symposium, announcing SoW-X.
TSMC's SoW-X Packaging Technology Is Said To Take Computing Capabilities To New Heights, Offering High Performance
When it comes to the importance of advanced packaging like CoWoS, it is basically one of the ways by which companies like NVIDIA have defied Moore's Law and the usual performance increment scale we saw with previous generations of products. By combining chips onto a single wafer and substrate, CoWoS has brought in a massive boost to computational performance, but it seems like the sky is the limit, as TSMC has revealed that they are working on advanced generations of CoWoS. This includes the new and improved SoW and SoW-X variants, which are said to be much more capable than existing options.
Starting with the most immediate release, TSMC says that they plan to release a CoWoS version with 9.5x reticle size, which will allow the integration of up to 12 HBM stacks. This particular variant is slated for production by 2027, and it will likely be a more mainstream packaging option than other alternatives being released in the same timeline. Modern-day CoWoS is said to come with a 5.5x reticle size (CoWoS-L), so scaling up to 9.5x reticle is a huge accomplishment for the Taiwan giant.
Next up, TSMC plans to replace CoWoS with its SoW (System-on-Wafer) implementation in the longer run, and the firm has already given us a rundown of the newer technology in the past. It is claimed that SoW will feature up to 40 times the reticle limit along with sixty HBM stacks, making it ideal for AI applications like large-scale clusters. However, the Taiwan giant has also revealed a new variant, the SoW-X, and while the specifics are uncertain for now, it is claimed that the packaging will feature 40x higher computing power than the current-gen CoWoS solution. Volume production for SoW variants is said to initiate by 2027.
Well, TSMC has achieved leadership status in the advanced chip packaging segment, and the Taiwan giant once again plans to dominate the market, after already doing so with its CoWoS set of solutions.
