GF SEC: Glass substrates or advanced packaging materials are the next generation material choices. The industrialization singularity is approaching.

GF SEC released a research report stating that glass substrates can be used to prepare optical waveguide circuits on the surface, thereby achieving high-density integration of optoelectronic packaging, and is expected to become one of the key technological paths for applications with bandwidths of 102.4 Tbps and higher. Industry manufacturers are also actively deploying glass substrate processes, and glass substrates have already entered the industrialization countdown. Through Glass Via (TGV) glass via processing is an important process in glass substrate processing, involving steps such as laser drilling, metal filling, and high-density wiring. The industry suggests paying attention to the demand for laser equipment brought about by high aspect ratio glass micro-hole processing and other process steps. GF SEC's main points are as follows: Glass substrates have significant advantages and are expected to become the next generation material choice for advanced packaging. Compared to traditional silicon and organic materials, glass has advantages such as low thermal expansion coefficient, high mechanical strength, excellent electrical insulation performance, and low high-frequency signal loss. It has become an important development direction for advanced packaging material systems and the downstream application scenarios are extending from new displays to advanced semiconductor packaging and optical communication fields. In the field of advanced packaging, the introduction of glass materials can replace the original silicon interlayer and organic substrates. With board-level packaging processes, it can significantly increase the wafer utilization rate, improve the transmission rate and bandwidth density of substrates. In the field of optical communication, according to the results reported by Corning's research team at the 75th IEEE Electronics Components and Technology Conference in 2025, glass substrates can be used to prepare optical waveguide circuits on the surface, thereby achieving high-density integration of optoelectronic packaging, and is expected to become one of the key technological paths for applications with bandwidths of 102.4 Tbps and higher. Industry giants are accelerating their layout, and glass substrates are entering the countdown to industrialization. The demand for AI for computational chip basic performance and capacity is driving industry giants to accelerate the industrial process of glass substrates. For example, Intel has successfully manufactured thick glass core substrates with a large number of layers for the first time, and also achieved integrated optical waveguides for the first time; TSMC is actively promoting CoPoS packaging technology and layout of glass substrates instead of silicon interlayers. According to Commercial Times quoting official sources from Mairui, TSMC's CoPoS pilot production line started equipment delivery in February, and mass production is expected to gradually start between 2028 and 2029. In addition, industry players such as NVIDIA, Apple, Samsung, and LG are also actively deploying glass substrate processes, and glass substrates have entered the industrialization countdown. TGV glass via processing is key to glass substrates, drilling, filling, and high-density wiring are core processes. The processing of glass substrates involves steps such as holing, filling, and RDL rewiring. At present, the challenges faced by TGV processing mainly focus on the process of hole formation for TGV and high-quality filling. (1) Hole forming aspect: Manufacturing high-quality glass vias with high aspect ratios and narrow spacings is one of the key factors determining the performance of glass substrates, and currently laser-induced etching is expected to become the mainstream process. (2) Hole filling aspect: Glass material surfaces are smooth and common metals have poor adhesion, therefore it is necessary to use methods such as bottom-up filling, butterfly filling, conformal filling, and plating filling of inner walls to achieve high-density filling. (3) High-density wiring aspect: High-density wiring on glass substrates is more difficult than with organic or silicon materials, and it requires processes such as circuit transfer technology (CTT), photosensitive embedding (PTE), mSAP to achieve high-density wiring. Risk warning The advancement of glass substrate processes may not meet expectations, there is a risk of fluctuations in the semiconductor industry, and the risk of growth in the advanced packaging market not meeting expectations.