The simple version
Advanced packaging connects chips, memory, and chiplets so they behave like one higher-performance system. It is one of the main ways the industry keeps improving performance now that shrinking transistors is harder and more expensive.
What the technology does
- Traditional packaging mostly protected a finished chip and connected it to a circuit board. Advanced packaging can shorten connections, increase I/O density, and put several chips into one package.
- Common building blocks include , , , -level packaging, , , , interposers, and stacking.
- For AI, the hard part is connecting accelerators to memory with enough bandwidth, acceptable heat, and manufacturing .
- For cars, robots, phones, and industrial hardware, advanced packaging can improve size, power, reliability, and system integration even when the chip is not at the leading logic node.
Industry map
Technology ladder
The useful mental model is not one single technique called advanced packaging. It is a ladder from and , to -level and packaging, to interposers, stacking, and integration.
- and shorten the electrical path between and package.
- and help route more I/O without simply making the larger.
- / approaches bring logic, memory, and chiplets closer together, which is why AI accelerators care so much.
Where the value moves
The old business was often viewed as scale manufacturing. The higher-end version looks more like system integration: electrical design, thermal design, choice, process , and customer co-development all matter.
Why China cares
Advanced packaging is attractive because it can improve system performance even when access to leading-edge manufacturing is constrained. It does not erase the gap, but it gives Chinese chip firms another lever.
- AI training and HPC care about bandwidth to and interconnect.
- Smartphones, EVs, and IoT care about size, power, reliability, and integration.
- Automotive and industrial customers add long qualification cycles and reliability demands.
Main choke points
The hard parts are not only the package format. Watch attach, high-end substrates, supply, thermal management, design co-optimization, high-volume , and whether customers trust Chinese suppliers with expensive chips.
Market scale
- TSMC's packaging became a headline AI bottleneck because Nvidia-class accelerators depend on it.
- The report frames advanced packaging participants as a mix of IDMs, foundries, and OSATs: Intel, Samsung, TSMC, ASE, and Amkor are the main global references.
- China's overall packaging and test market is large. The report cites a 2025 China mainland packaging/test market estimate of RMB355.19 billion, with advanced packaging at roughly 32% of the market.
- Capacity is measured less by generic package volume and more by scarce advanced lines, substrates, integration know-how, thermal performance, and customer qualification.
China angle
JCET, Tongfu, Huatian, and SJ Semiconductor are the names to watch first. The report says the mainland top three OSATs have built platform strategies that cover consumer electronics through AI chips. Tongfu's VISionS platform is positioned around , , MCM, , and large ; JCET's XDFOI is framed for / and ; Huatian's Matrix combines , , and . SJ Semiconductor is strategically interesting because it came out of the SMIC-JCET joint venture and focuses on , , and /-style advanced packaging.
Companies to track
Mainland scale leaders
These are the first names to know because they combine revenue scale, customer access, and broad capabilities.
Advanced-packaging platforms
These are worth tracking for AI/HPC relevance, narratives, and movement from conventional into higher-value integration.
Specialists and second ring
These companies are not all equivalent in scale, but they map useful niches: -level packaging, display-driver packaging, storage packaging, and / experiments.
Global references
Use these as the external benchmark for what frontier capability and customer trust look like.
How we got here
Packaging was long treated as back-end manufacturing. That changed as chiplets, , and heterogeneous integration made the package part of the performance story, not just the protective shell.
- 1970-1990
Packaging moves from through-hole DIP toward surface-mount formats like SOP and QFP.
- 1990-2000
Area-array formats such as BGA, CSP, and improve density and electrical performance.
- 2000s-2010s
-level packaging, , , , and packaging become more commercially important.
- 2022-2025
AI accelerators turn -class packaging, attach, substrates, and thermal management into visible bottlenecks.
- Next phase
Watch domestic attach, supply, large , , and whether Chinese platforms win serious AI-chip work.
Why it matters
AI chips increasingly depend on packaging to connect compute, memory, and networking at high bandwidth.
/ integration, interposers, attach, thermal management, supply, and .
Where this sector shows up
- Core
- AI training, AI inference
- High
- Industrial
- Medium
- Robotics, EV / auto, Consumer / IoT
What to watch
- -like capacity
- integration
- announcements
- bottlenecks
- SJ Semiconductor financing and platform claims
- Huawei package teardowns
Report notes
- The LeadLeo advanced-packaging report frames the mainland top three OSATs as JCET, Tongfu, and Huatian, each with platform-style advanced packaging strategies.
- It treats SJ Semiconductor as a strategically important SMIC-JCET-linked advanced packaging player, not merely another conventional .
- It also surfaces second-ring companies worth tracking by niche, including China Level CSP, Yongsi, Chipmore, and Payton.