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TSMC reportedly weighs 20% CoWoS price increase as Nvidia Blackwell and Rubin chips put pressure on packaging capacity

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TSMC reportedly weighs 20% CoWoS price increase as Nvidia Blackwell and Rubin chips put pressure on packaging capacity

TSMC is weighing raising prices for its Chip on Wafer on Substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology by as much as 20%, reports Trendforce, citing supply chain sources and local media. The increase reflects strained capacity amid AI demand and longer delivery times for chipmaking tools. Such a hike would be significant, as CoWoS is already one of the tightest links in the AI supply chain. TSMC has yet to confirm the report.

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CoWoS combines logic dies and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stacks within a single package, which is how AI accelerators get the data bandwidth that demanding workloads require. Building these packages is only getting harder as chip designers cram in more compute and memory. Nvidia’s Blackwell already pairs two large GPU dies with eight HBM3E stacks, whereas the upcoming Rubin and Rubin Ultra are expected to push integration further, which will increase pressure on packaging and the supply chain that supports it.

Testing is turning into another bottleneck. Blackwell reportedly takes three to four times longer to test than Nvidia’s previous-generation Hopper, and Rubin could need as much as seven times longer. Extended test cycles keep equipment occupied for longer, which makes it harder to increase output as demand grows. GPUs are not the only products competing for capacity either, as server CPUs and custom ASICs also need advanced packaging, adding more strain to an already crowded supply chain.


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