TSMC reportedly plans up to 20% hike for CoWoS advanced chip packaging on surging AI demand
What happened
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is preparing to raise prices for its CoWoS (Chip on Wafer on Substrate) advanced packaging services by 10% to 20%, according to Taiwan's Commercial Times (also cited as China Times), which cited supply-chain sources. CoWoS packages AI processors together with high-bandwidth memory (HBM) into a single unit, and it is the packaging technology used in most advanced AI accelerators. The report says foundries and outsourced assembly-and-test providers are preparing the increases as demand for advanced packaging expands beyond GPUs to server CPUs and custom AI chips (ASICs), while longer AI chip testing times and equipment lead times stretching from 3-6 months to 6-8 months tighten capacity further.
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Start your free 14-day trialWho’s affected
- TSMC (TSM) — pricing power and margin upside on its scarcest capacity
- Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD — higher packaging costs on AI accelerators, though both have pricing power of their own
- Apple (AAPL) — potential further pressure on iPhone/Mac costs already hit by rising memory prices
- Broadcom, Qualcomm, MediaTek — other major TSMC advanced-packaging customers; semiconductor equipment suppliers — lengthening tool lead times signal a strong order book; memory makers (SK Hynix, Micron) — CoWoS demand is tightly linked to HBM integration.