It appears the market is once again facing a shortage of ABF substrates, reminiscent of the situation five years ago. While current constraints haven’t reached a critical level yet, reports from DigiTimes indicate existing limitations, with analysts forecasting a three-year period of escalating demand.
The manufacturing of ABF substrates, essential for virtually every contemporary computing chip, is handled by only a handful of corporations. However, an even more significant bottleneck exists: the film required to produce these very substrates, an element almost exclusively supplied by the firm Ajinomoto Fine-Techno.
Today’s scenario diverges from the previous shortage because, back then, the issue was simply an increase in general demand. Now, not only is demand surging at an astonishing rate, but certain chips necessitate substantially larger quantities of this specific film.
The chips developed by Nvidia for its AI accelerators are enormous in scale. Fabricating the substrates for these requires approximately 15 to 18 times more of the film compared to standard chips, thereby intensifying the current predicament.
Major market participants have already begun placing orders with Ajinomoto Fine-Techno on a prepaid basis, enabling the company to expand its production capacity; nevertheless, this measure won’t entirely resolve the issue.
An interesting tidbit: Ajinomoto Fine-Techno was once involved in the food seasoning business, yet now the entire semiconductor manufacturing sector heavily depends on its output.
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