Demand for high-end fiberglass cloth is surging on the AI boom, and orders from copper-clad laminate (CCL) customers are leaving the world's two largest suppliers, Nittobo and Taiwan Glass, short of capacity. In particular, low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and low Dk2 products remain the tightest, with supply-demand gaps now expected to last through 2027.
Demand in the passive component market has rebounded alongside the rapid buildout of AI data centers. While Japanese suppliers continue to lead in technology, their capacity expansion has struggled to keep pace with AI-related demand, driving order spillover to Taiwan-based manufacturers.
The race to commercialize glass core substrates in advanced semiconductor packaging is heating up — but the technology is moving faster in headlines than in production lines. DIGITIMES has been tracking the latest developments in TSMC's CoPoS advanced packaging technology, with glass core substrates emerging as the most closely watched variable in that story.
Taiwan's semiconductor equipment, components, and solutions providers posted robust revenue growth through the first five months of 2026, with 34 of 43 tracked companies reporting positive accumulated year-on-year figures.
Taiyo Yuden is preparing to accelerate production of multilayer ceramic capacitors, or MLCCs, as AI servers and hyperscale data centers tighten supply across the global component market. But the Japanese supplier is resisting the kind of broad price increases now spreading through parts of the industry.
The global appetite for AI chips is putting new strain on materials suppliers, turning one of Ajinomoto's lesser-known products into a pressure point for advanced semiconductor packaging.
Samsung Electro-Mechanics (Semco) is rapidly gaining ground in the silicon capacitor market as AI infrastructure investment and technology upgrades accelerate demand. After landing its first major silicon capacitor order, the company is in talks with additional potential customers, while its multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) business is also expanding and operating profit is expected to hit a record high.
China has achieved mass production of ultra-pure silicon, according to the state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) — an essential material for building silicon-based quantum computers. The breakthrough builds on a government push to sharpen its quantum research edge and reduce its reliance on foreign technology supply chains more broadly.
TSMC is accelerating its advanced packaging roadmap for AI chips, expanding CoWoS capacity while publicly disclosing new progress in glass substrate technology. The company is also signaling that next-generation packaging competition is shifting from CoWoS toward CoPoS as it builds out a fuller ecosystem ahead of rivals.
China has recently eased controls on some indium phosphide (InP) substrates, relieving a bottleneck in optical communications capacity for the second half of the year. But supply chain players say the long-term priority is still to expand substrate capacity from non-China sources, with supply security for the AI industry outweighing price.
Walsin Technology expects the tight supply of passive components could last into 2028, as demand from AI infrastructure, automotive electronics, and future device upgrades lifts orders while memory shortages weigh on shipments across the broader electronics supply chain.
