TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Kinsus is investing billions to keep pace with Nvidia and TSMC in the booming AI chip market, Nikkei Asia reported Thursday.
The leading chip substrate supplier plans to build a new facility every two to three years to meet growing demand, according to Kinsus CEO and President Chen Ho-hsu (陳河旭). The multiyear expansion aims to challenge domestic and global rivals in high-end substrate production.
Kinsus supplies AMD and Micron and is tracking TSMC’s and other global fabs’ technological progress to guide its capacity expansion strategy. Substrates for 7 nm chips cannot be used for 5 nm chips, making phased construction necessary, per Nikkei Asia.
“We will not build all the plants at once,” Chen said. “Suppliers must closely track tech advancements and keep pace with them.”
Chip substrates serve as the foundation for chips before assembly on printed circuit boards. Only a handful of companies, including Japan’s Ibiden and Austria’s AT&S, produce high-end substrates at scale.
The AI chip boom is expected to drive decades of growth. “I’m not too worried about demand slowing or bursting. AI is real and still has enormous potential ahead,” Chen said, adding that geopolitical tensions like the US-Iran conflict may only moderate growth.
Building modern substrate facilities has become far costlier due to technical requirements. Kinsus’ latest plant in Taoyuan costs around NT$40 billion (US$1.25 billion), while a next-generation facility will run about NT$60 billion. Chen said cleanrooms and equipment must meet chip fab standards.
Access to stable electricity remains a key concern. Chen welcomed Taiwan’s recent government moves to restart two nuclear plants amid rising energy demands and the AI boom. Solar and wind alone are not sufficient, Chen said, noting small modular reactors could play a key role.
Kinsus is integrating AI into production, using autonomous management systems and real-time monitoring to boost yields. “An engineer could help improve the production yield rate to 80%, but if we want the yield to reach more than 95%, we need AI and big data analysis,” Chen said.
Founded in 2000, Kinsus is the world’s largest supplier of BT substrates for memory chips and lightweight devices. The company is now expanding capacity for ABF substrates, used in high-performance computing, aiming to match rivals like Ibiden by 2028.
