Electronics component maker Samsung Electro-Mechanics has started mass production of FC-BGA (cladding-ball grid array package) for servers in South Korea for the first time, indicating that it aims to become the third largest IC packaging substrate manufacturer in the world.
According to BusinessKorea, Pulse, Samsung Electro-Mechanics announced that the company’s semiconductor substrate production has continued to increase from 495,000 square meters in 2019 to 703,000 square meters in 2021, equivalent to 100 soccer fields. The company’s capacity rate is approaching 100% due to the continued shortage of substrates.
FC-BGA is a high-grade substrate with high technical difficulty. Samsung Electro-Mechanics said it will expand its production of high-end products and aims to become the third largest semiconductor substrate manufacturer, after Japanese manufacturer Ibiden and Shin Kong Electric. In the next five years, the FC-BGA market is expected to grow by more than 10% per year, and the market value will rise from $11.3 billion to $17 billion in 2026. Ahn Jung-hoon, director of Samsung Electro-Mechanics, said that although the semiconductor substrate market is smaller than foundry, but the growth potential is much larger than foundry.
So far this year, Samsung Electro-Mechanics has invested 300 billion won ($227 million) in South Korean production lines to produce next-generation substrates. In the past two years, the company spent 2 trillion won to expand FC-BGA production facilities.
