China-based OSAT (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) firms are gearing up to tap into medium to high-end packaging fields, including the flip chip (FC) packaging segment where they believe they can technologically catch up with Taiwan counterparts in one year, according to industry sources.
In 2019, China OSAT firms including Tongfu Microelectronics, Tianshui Huatian Technology, and Jiangsu Changjiang Electronics Technology are expected to keep vying for lower-end wire-bonding packaging orders from Taiwan designers of non-processor chips, including Elan Microelectronics and Realtek Semiconductor, by offering quotes 10% lower than Taiwan peers.
But the China firms are now striving to venture into the QFN, BGA, FC and other higher-end packaging sectors to cash in on mounting demand from vendors of a variety of IoT chips. Particularly in the FC space, their technological gap with Taiwan counterparts has significantly narrowed to only one year, the sources said.
Among them, Tongfu is moving to win CPU packaging orders with its FC-BGA process technology. The company has reportedly completed 12-inch fan-out packaging line seeking to land orders from international vendors of medium- and high-end CPUs.
Tianshui Huatian has won SiP (system in package) orders from Huawei for processing fingerprint identification modules adopted for its smartphones.
Changjiang has developed FC-PoP (package on package) technology for processing handset application processors, and its subsidiary Changdian Advanced Packaging has become China's largest Fan-in WLCSP (wafer level chip scale package) service provider.
But the market for high-performance chips packaging is still dominated by Taiwan OSATs. ASE Technology Holding has won orders from leading chipmakers Qualcomm and Nvidia. Powertech Technology has landed orders from MediaTek to provide fan-out panel level package (FOPLP) services. Even TSMC has developed advanced CoWoS and InFoWLP packaging technologies to better serve its major foundry clients including Apple and Xilinx.
Industry sources said that the best way for China OSAT firms to tap into the advanced packaging segment is to leverage their country's strategic resources to acquire international IC packagers.
Article translated by Willis Ke
