Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Nvidia will jointly invest to significantly expand production capacity for AI chip substrates. Starting this year, Samsung Electro-Mechanics will supply Nvidia with package substrates for next-generation AI chips and ultra-high-speed networking under a multiyear, long-term agreement.
The company announced on Oct. 21 that it had signed a strategic partnership with Nvidia covering these terms.
At the core of the deal is the construction of new production lines dedicated to Nvidia at Samsung Electro-Mechanics' key domestic sites in Sejong and Busan. The lines will make substrates for Nvidia's next-generation computing chipsets, as well as package substrates for network switches, which handle ultra-high-speed data transfer between chips inside data centers.
Supply will begin in earnest this year and continue for multiple years.
Under the partnership, Nvidia volumes in Samsung Electro-Mechanics' package substrate business are expected to grow at a double-digit annual rate for several years. The company expects Nvidia orders to account for a substantial share of its total annual package substrate capacity by 2028.
For Nvidia, the deal secures a stable, early supply of cutting-edge package substrates, a critical component in AI chip production, and helps ease bottlenecks in the global AI infrastructure supply chain.
Samsung Electro-Mechanics was chosen for its proven track record in making AI package substrates. As these substrates grow larger and add more layers, yield depends on two capabilities. The first is ultra-fine circuitry to prevent signal loss. The second is flatness control to suppress warpage caused by thermal deformation.
The work also demands some of the most difficult processes in the industry. To control the massive power noise generated during ultra-fast computation and maximize power efficiency, multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) and silicon capacitors, both passive components, must be embedded directly inside the substrate.
“We will combine Samsung Electro-Mechanics' advanced flip-chip ball grid array (FC-BGA) manufacturing competitiveness with our highly reliable MLCC technology to fully play the role of a total solution provider, so that Nvidia's AI platforms reach the market on time,” said Chang Duck-hyun, president of Samsung Electro-Mechanics.
