CoWoS packaging capacity is compounding at more than 80 percent a year from 2027 through 2029, and TSMC is reorganizing its back-end supply chain to keep pace. The centerpiece of that push is a new advanced packaging base in southern Taiwan.
TSMC is moving into Kaohsiung’s Baipu Industrial Park with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the city government, aiming to create what it calls Taiwan’s first supply chain cluster for packaging materials and equipment. Two buildings on three hectares of the park will hold laboratories and cleanrooms for research and testing.
Jun He, TSMC vice president of advanced packaging, announced the plan during SEMICON Taiwan. A shared platform at the site will let equipment suppliers validate their hardware and software before tools reach production lines, an attempt to standardize earlier in the development cycle.
He also pushed Taiwan’s back-end suppliers to scale up, noting their combined revenue is only about 6.5 percent and R&D only about 5.4 percent of the levels at the world’s top five equipment firms. Suppliers need front-end capability and full automation to compete, he argued.
The park is designed to support nearby science parks and extends TSMC’s packaging footprint beyond its traditional base in northern Taiwan as AI accelerators strain chip-on-wafer-on-substrate output.
