NVIDIA’s new Blackwell GB200 and B-series AI GPUs, including the B100 and B200, have received a “large number of customers,” and that “demand exceeds supply,” reports UDN.
2VIEW GALLERY – 2 IMAGES
After NVIDIA aggressively increased the production volume of TSMC’s advanced process, the “order-chasing effect” spread to the back-end packaging and testing plants. ASE Investment Holdings and KYEC operations have “exploded,” reports UDN, with related order volume doubling in the fourth quarter.
UDN reports from its sources that KYEC is “full of new orders” from NVIDIA, that it is moving internally to welcome those large volumes of orders, and that it needs to be relocated for this purpose alone. More production capacity can then meet NVIDIA’s growing (unstoppable) needs.
Industry insiders have analyzed that NVIDIA has previously reported it will invest in more wafers at TSMC, and in that time, TSMC’s output has increased “significantly,” reports UDN. The demand for back-end packaging and testing will only increase at the same rate, with TSMC getting wafer output increased, packaging and testing factories will “then take over,” adds UDN.
TrendForce released a recent report saying the supply chain is optimistic that the volume of shipments of NVIDIA’s new GB200 Superchip will pass 1 million units in 2025. The industry is also optimistic because TSMC is the exclusive semiconductor foundry for NVIDIA chips, and with big orders, ASE Investment Holdings and KYEC are the “two winners” in back-end packaging and testing.
Testing NVIDIA’s new Blackwell chips isn’t east, as it takes “significantly longer” than the previous-generation Hopper AI GPUs. Blackwell AI GPUs must go through four consecutive procedures, including terminal test (Final Test), burn-in burn-in test, and return. After the FT test, the SLT system-level test is then completed.
Testing time has been massively increased, but has a positive impact on the average unit price (ASP) and gross profit market of third-party companies, helping improve the profit performance of ASE Investment Holdings and KYEC. NVIDIA is helping the world, it seems.
You might not have heard about ASE, but the company has a subsidiary called ASE Silicon Products and works closely with NVIDIA. ASE also undertakes TSMC’s new CoWoS advanced packaging OS segment process, as well as laying out test production capacity at its Zhongke Factory to meet NVIDIA’s one-stop production services from the wafer back-end to the packaging and testing stages.
ASE Investment Holdings (is obviously) looking forward to the “explosion of business opportunities” in AI and High-Performance Computing (HPC), which will drive massive demand for advanced packaging. We should see this growth trend continue through to 2025 and beyond, with the group’s AI advanced packaging performance “expected to double ‘this year,” adds UDN.
KYEC is also actively welcoming the new “order-chasing effect” of NVIDIA and has fully “moved into action” according to UDN sources, who added that KYEC’s order volume from NVIDIA has “surged” and will double in Q4 2024 compared to Q3 2024.
The company is “extremely busy” and with the increase in product complexity through Blackwell, and the longer testing time, KYEC’s original Chinese factory that serves NVIDIA is “seriously under capacity” and plans to use “most of the area” of the Tongluo No.3 factory for testing NVIDIA chips, which will make a “significant contribution” to KYEC in Q4 2024 and throughout 2025.