NVIDIA ordering more CoWoS-L advanced packaging from TSMC: ready for more Blackwell AI GPUs

In order for NVIDIA's continued AI GPU dominance it needs advanced packaging -- TSMC is the king of the semiconductor industry, and has the world's bleeding-edge advanced packaging technology -- but NVIDIA needs more, much more.

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NVIDIA's new Blackwell AI GPUs have multiple chips glued together using a complex chip on wafer on substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology that TSMC makes, with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang making some new remarks on needing more CoWoS advanced packaging capacity.

Huang said on the sidelines of an event by chip supplier Siliconware Precision Industries in Taiwan's central Taichung city: "As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we're still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L. So it's not about reducing capacity. It's actually increasing capacity into CoWoS-L".

Until now, NVIDIA has relied on using only one style of CoWoS advanced packaging -- CoWoS-S -- but the shift to CoWoS-L is happening. Taiwan media is reporting that NVIDIA was cutting CoWoS-S orders from TSMC, and that it could be a "potential hit" to the TSMC revenue.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang added that the amount of advanced packaging capacity was "probably 4 times" the amount available less than two years ago now.