New Changes and Patterns in the Field of Sealing and Testing in China

Since Moore's Law encountered a bottleneck, the development of sealing and testing has gradually received attention from the industry. The new forces in the packaging industry, represented by advanced packaging, are changing the landscape of the packaging field.

As a relatively mature part of China's semiconductor industry chain, packaging and testing has also experienced vibrations in the Chinese packaging and testing field as the global semiconductor packaging and testing market has fanned its wings like a butterfly.

Changes in China's sealing and testing giants
According to the article "Ten Year Changes of Packaging and Testing Plants" previously released by the semiconductor industry observation, it has been pointed out that in recent years, China's semiconductor industry has been developing rapidly, and currently, some manufacturers in China are no longer as large as international giants.

Changdian Technology, Tongfu Microelectronics, and Tianshui Huatian are representatives of China's semiconductor packaging and testing field. With the arrival of advanced packaging, wafer foundries have taken the lead in entering advanced packaging technology, which has also had a certain impact on traditional OSAT manufacturers. In this situation, traditional semiconductor packaging and testing manufacturers have also begun to have new plans.

The shining points of other domestic sealing and testing enterprises

In addition to leading companies in semiconductor packaging and testing, there are also many enterprises in China that are committed to the development of the semiconductor packaging and testing industry.

Overall, according to statistics from the China Semiconductor Association, the number of packaging and testing enterprises in mainland China has exceeded 130, and the market size of China's packaging and testing industry has grown from 103.4 billion yuan in 2012 to over 250 billion yuan in 2022, with a compound growth rate of over 10%.

In this context, in addition to the well-known semiconductor packaging and testing giants, there are also some changes happening in domestic enterprises dedicated to the packaging and testing field, which are also worth paying attention to.

The market in the field of chip testing has always been monopolized by several leading foreign companies. As a dark horse in the field of chip testing, Shenzhen Tech Optoelectronics has also advanced its testing technology in the past two years, especially leading domestic manufacturers in areas such as blue film tape knitting machines and ESD detection technology, basically achieving a level of technological competition with foreign enterprises. After nearly a decade of research and improvement, products such as IC probe benches, wafer testing machines, chip testing machines, spectro tape machines, and blue film tape machines have been updated and upgraded to third-generation and fifth generation products. The testing accuracy and speed of the product have been greatly improved, and the cost of testing machines has been maximized, resulting in a significant decrease in the overall cost of the packaging and testing industry.

                                                                       Tec Optoelectronic Chip Tester

In the article "Challenges Faced by Packaging and Testing Plants" previously released by the semiconductor industry, Risto Puhakka, President of the well-known research firm VLSI Research, stated that one of the pressures felt by OSAT comes from China. There are a large number of packaging factories in China, and their costs are much lower, whether through subsidies or other means. Meanwhile, he also pointed out that large OSATs are currently distributed throughout Asia, but China represents the greatest growth opportunity.

From the above information, it can be seen that some domestic packaging and testing manufacturers have the support of leading semiconductor chip enterprises. With the help of these leading enterprises, domestic packaging and testing manufacturers have achieved certain results in the segmented field. On the other hand, in these segmented fields, we see that traditional packaging technology can still bring development space for domestic packaging and testing manufacturers.

Another New Change in the Field of Sealing and Testing

The development of semiconductor packaging and testing is closely related to the overall development of the semiconductor industry. Especially for the current semiconductor industry, the increase in related enterprises has brought new opportunities for development in the semiconductor packaging and testing field.

From the perspective of the Chinese market, the demand for chips in China exceeded 400 billion US dollars around 2020, with imports of 380 billion US dollars. By 2030, it will exceed 500 billion US dollars, and the localization rate will also increase from about 15% to 70%. The technology trade game between China and the United States, the hot capital market, and the dividends of Chinese policies have given rise to a large number of small and medium-sized chip companies. From 2014 to 2022, the number of domestic chip companies has increased from over 600 to over 2000.

The prosperity of the domestic semiconductor industry is reflected in the numerous domestic semiconductor packaging and testing enterprises. As a part of the semiconductor industry chain, domestic packaging and testing manufacturers not only face greater market demand, but also need to accelerate technological upgrades to meet the pursuit of domestic chip design manufacturers. And this has put forward new requirements for domestic semiconductor packaging and testing enterprises. The technological rise of Shenzhen Tech Optoelectronics has filled the technological gap in the domestic chip testing field and injected lubricants and catalysts into the rapid development of China's packaging and testing industry.