The worsening shortages of ABF substrates are expected to become one of the major woes affecting shipments of new CPU and GPU products at chipmakers in 2021, according to industry sources.
Nivida has seen its recent shipments of RTX 30 chips affected by a spate of factors including ABF substrate supply shortfalls, apart from unsatisfactory 8nm yield rates at its foundry partner, Samsung Electronics, the sources said.
Nvidia has pointed out that it will take several more months before it can fully satisfy strong market demand for the chips, the sources said, adding that shortages of components including ABF substrates will increasingly impact shipments to the terminal markets.
Nvidia now relies on multiple makers for the supply of ABF substrates, including Taiwan's Unimicron Technology, Nan Ya PCB and Kinsus Interconnect Technology, as well as their peers in Japan.
But the chipmaker has to compete with Intel, AMD and other vendors of networking and HPC chips for capacity support from ABF substrate suppliers, and therefore can hardly fully satisfy terminal market demand, the sources said.
Major chipmakers are offering higher prices trying to secure ABF substrate capacity support for 2021, the sources continued, adding that supply will continue to be outgrown by terminal market demand, as increasing capacity for ABF substrates is not an easy job.
Both Unimicron and Nan Ya are expected to maintain capacity expansion for ABF substrates at 10% in 2021, and Kinsus will have a higher expansion rate, the sources said.
Article translated by Willis Ke
