Amid growing concerns that semiconductor microfabrication is reaching its limits, a forum was established to discuss the need to develop the semiconductor packaging sector, which is approaching a global market of $100 billion, into a next-generation strategic industry.

The 'Advanced Semiconductor Packaging National Assembly Forum' was held on the 25th at the 2nd Conference Room of the National Assembly Members' Office Building in Yeouido, organized by Seoul National University of Science and Technology and Seoul Technopark. SK Hynix Vice President Lee Kang-wook and Hana Micron Vice President Kim Dong-hyun participated in the forum and delivered lectures on packaging technology.

The forum explored ways to develop the domestic packaging industry, stating that the semiconductor ecosystem can create synergy when the three axes of semiconductor design, manufacturing, and back-end processes are promoted simultaneously.

Rep. Byun Jae-il of the Democratic Party of Korea expressed concern, stating, “The packaging industry has developed primarily around China and Taiwan, while the domestic sector lags behind relatively,” and added, “Looking at the preliminary feasibility study projects currently being pursued by the government, it appears they do not feel any concern regarding the packaging sector.” He lamented that the importance of packaging is being downplayed, stating, “I heard opinions from stakeholders dismissing it, claiming that it is cheaper to outsource to Taiwan than to expensive domestic packaging.” He emphasized that regarding post-processing issues, it is necessary to present a policy vision in addition to addressing technical matters.

■ The semiconductor industry: The past was an addition formula, now it is multiplication

In the past, the formula of addition applied, allowing products to maintain competitiveness through design and fabrication (front-end processes) even if the packaging process was weak. However, the formula has now shifted to multiplication, meaning that none of design, fabrication, or packaging can be disregarded; if even one falls to zero, it is difficult to establish a business.

Lee Kang-wook, Vice President of SK Hynix, took the stage at the forum on this day as a speaker and delivered a lecture on "The Role of Semiconductor Packaging Technology for Innovation in the Semiconductor Industry." He noted that semiconductor packaging is rapidly emerging as a new business area by enhancing product value.

Vice President Lee Kang-wook analyzed, “While in my current position, I have keenly felt the importance of packaging and witnessed firsthand the fierce competition among global companies to seize hegemony in the field,” adding, “Packaging technology will serve as a leverage point to transition from a powerhouse in memory semiconductors to a powerhouse in comprehensive semiconductors.”

Recent industry trends show an accelerating competition to secure solution platforms based on heterogeneous integration (chiplets). TSMC currently dominates the market in the back-end process sector by leveraging its technological prowess, and is favored by customers for adopting a solution-oriented foundry business model.

For Intel to increase revenue centered on fabs, investment must also increase proportionally. In addition, the fact that Intel and Samsung are IDM companies makes them difficult to be preferred by clients who are reluctant to leak technical know-how, which also plays a role.

Vice President Lee assessed that "Taiwan has a solid value chain among fabless, foundry, memory, EMS, and OSAT," and suggested that Korea needs innovation in the semiconductor industry based on advanced packaging technology to move toward integrated semiconductors. To this end, he proposed talent development, integrated R&D, and strengthening the ecosystem among foundry, IDM, and OSAT, as well as materials, parts, and equipment in the back-end process sector.

As the difficulty of packaging technology has increased compared to the past, a trend of convergence among design, fabrication, and packaging technologies is emerging. Vice President Lee predicted, “Due to the rising cost of materials and equipment, it will be difficult for small and medium-sized materials, parts, and equipment companies or OSATs to secure the advanced packaging sector,” adding that “foundry and IDM companies will lead the way.”

Due to growth centered on memory semiconductors, the competitiveness of the domestic OSAT and back-end process ecosystem remains weak. Vice President Lee, noting the inadequacy of the professional workforce education and training system, added, “A control tower is needed to systematically lead integrated industry-academia-research R&D in the back-end process sector.”

■ Increased packaging value in applied and convergence fields

Advanced packaging is expanding into application and convergence fields such as autonomous driving, hyperscale AI, and high-performance computing (HPC), and its importance is growing to the point where related technological capabilities determine success or failure in these sectors.

Dr. Kwon Young-soo of the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute stated, “Semiconductor innovation is essential for the widespread adoption of hyperscale AI,” emphasizing that massive artificial neural networks in the AI field are advancing day by day, with the number of parameters—the number of learned data points—reaching 100 trillion. Dr. Kwon lamented that it is difficult to build artificial intelligence parameters domestically because there are no semiconductors capable of housing such hyperscale AI.

Due to physical limitations such as reticle size and excessive development costs, advanced packaging such as interposers is emerging as a necessary solution for implementing hyperscale AI; this is the background behind the emergence of semiconductors that integrate multiple dies—including NPUs, HBM, and SRAM—into a single chip and connect them to operate as a single processor. Dr. Kwon explained that this can solve problems such as performance and power.

Artificial intelligence algorithms are crucial in the field of autonomous driving, and the key to this is hardware technology. Referring to the Tesla Dojo D1 chip, Hana Micron Vice President Kim Dong-hyun emphasized that advanced packaging technology is essential for manufacturing AI semiconductors used in autonomous driving that enable hyperscale implementation.


On the other hand, while large corporations and the server market can use AI semiconductors even at a high price, they must be low-cost to become widespread. Vice President Kim pointed out that chiplets using silicon interposers face cost challenges, becoming nearly $1,000 more expensive.

The communications semiconductor sector is the area where packaging technology is most advanced. It is a sector where heterogeneous integration has occurred rapidly because silicon cannot handle high power output due to the use of high-frequency ranges. It was stated that next-generation communications semiconductor technology requires packaging technology for millimeter-wave and terahertz antennas.

Kang Sa-yoon, President of the Korea Microelectronics and Packaging Society, cited the limitations of the front-end process and the emergence of various IT technologies as the reasons for the advent of the packaging era. This is because existing IDMs could not cover the diverse range of IT devices that emerged with the advent of wearables, AR, and VR.

Chairman Kang predicted, “A transition period for semiconductors driven by AI will occur in the future, and semiconductor sales will reach $1.2 trillion by 2030.” He foresaw that data-centric AI would be the key.