As Moore's Law slows down, the semiconductor industry is transforming and facing challenges. As a crucial technological segment in the post-Moore era, the role of packaging and testing technology is becoming increasingly prominent.
During a global suppliers' conference held at the end of December in Jiangsu Province, Zheng Li, CEO of JCET Group, pointed out that the packaging and testing industry will experience a mixed situation in 2024, with a noticeable market upturn expected around 2025 or 2026.
According to reports from various Chinese media, Zheng Li stated that high-performance packaging represents the semiconductor industry's future and is a vital direction for technological innovation and capacity allocation in the chip industry.
The current situation of a revitalized packaging and testing market with increased technical diversity poses challenges for both packaging and testing companies and wafer fabs. Addressing these challenges individually is difficult and necessitates a stronger collaboration among major players in the packaging and testing industry and related supply chain partners. This trend introduces new transformation requirements for industry collaboration and division of labor.
JCET aims to leverage the supplier conference to strengthen the strategic coordination mechanism between chip manufacturing and supporting industries, seeking to collaborate with suppliers and partners to seize opportunities in the global supply chain reorganization.
Regarding the development trends and new paths in packaging and testing technology in 2024, Zheng mentioned that the market growth of China's packaging and testing industry is benefiting from the recovery of consumer electronics and the boost in the memory market.
He further pointed out that with the expansion of data centers and the widespread adoption of cloud computing, the Chinese memory market is experiencing significant growth, acting as a catalyst for the recovery of the packaging and testing industry.
In addition to the recovery driven by the revival of consumer electronics and the memory market, the packaging and testing industry also benefits from the approaching post-Moore era. As semiconductor manufacturing processes approach physical limits, the future chip industry relies on packaging and testing technology to enhance chip performance. This not only increases demand for packaging and testing, but also requires diversification in testing technologies.
Zheng emphasized that China's development in green energy industries such as new energy vehicles and solar power create opportunities for applying wide-bandgap semiconductor power components. Advanced packaging technology is essential to ensuring the stable and reliable performance of wide-bandgap semiconductor components. Despite the technical difficulty, advanced packaging is critical to improving signal transmission efficiency for technologies such as 5G and future advancements of 6G, Wi-Fi 6, and Wi-Fi 7.
Furthermore, sensors are a significant application of wide-bandgap semiconductors. Achieving miniaturization and high efficiency in sensors is a focal point of the packaging and testing industry. This includes the adoption of advanced packaging techniques to reduce chip size.
