Samsung’s Answer To TSMC’s CoWoS Is “SAINT” – Samsung Advanced Interconnection Technology For Next-Gen Chips

Samsung To Introduce "SAINT" 3D Packaging Services By 2025 In Preparations For HBM4 1

Samsung is readying its own chip packaging solution to rival TSMC's CoWoS which is reportedly going to be called SAINT.

The latest report comes from The Korean Economic Daily which is reporting that the Korean tech giant, Samsung, is readying its own advanced packaging solution to compete against the widely popular CoWoS (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate) packaging technology from TSMC.

It is reported that Samsung plans to unveil its solution next year and will be calling it SAINT or Samsung Advanced Interconnection Technology. That's a very interesting naming choice and it looks like SAINT will be used to make a variety of different solutions. There will be three types of packaging technologies offered by Samsung which include:

SAINT S - For vertically stacking SRAM memory chips and CPU

SAINT D - For vertically packaging core IPs such as CPU, GPU, and DRAM

SAINT L - For stacking application processors (APs)

Samsung has already passed validation testing but plans to widen its services later in the coming year after further testing with clients. There's no doubt that the semiconductor market will benefit from a new player in the advanced packaging segment. TSMC currently offers its CoWoS services to a range of clients including NVIDIA and AMD for their current and upcoming AI GPUs while Intel is using its own advanced chip manufacturing technologies on accelerators such as Ponte Vecchio & its successors.

If all goes according to plan, Samsung's SAINT has the potential to gain a good chunk of the market from its adversaries though it remains to be seen if companies such as NVIDIA and AMD will be satisfied with the technology they have on offer. Everyone knows that advanced packaging is the way forward as companies move away from monolithic designs to chiplet based architectures. The shift in semiconductor design and reliance on advanced packaging has led TSMC to expand its CoWoS facilities to keep up with the increasing demand.

It is also being reported by several other tech pubs that Samsung is in the race to win a huge order of HBM memory that will go on to power NVIDIA's next-gen Blackwell AI GPUs. The company had just introduced its Shinebolt "HBM3e" memory. The reports from the Korean outlet, Hankooki, suggest that the new deal will mark a major blow to SK hynix. Samsung also won orders from AMD for its next-gen Instinct accelerators but that order was of vastly lower proportions compared to NVIDIA which controls around 90% of the AI market. Both companies are also expected to have HBM3 orders booked and sold out till 2025 which gives you a rough idea of how big the demand for AI GPUs is right now.