Morgan Stanley: The market's hot topic CoWoP is unlikely to be adopted in NVIDIA's next-generation GPU

Despite the market's hype around chip-level wafer-level packaging (CoWoP) technology, the likelihood of NVIDIA's next-generation GPU product Rubin Ultra adopting this technology is low.

On July 30, according to news from the Wind Trading Desk, Morgan Stanley's latest research shows that NVIDIA's Rubin Ultra will continue to use the existing ABF substrate technology rather than switching to the CoWoP solution.

Morgan Stanley analysts believe that the transition from CoWoS to CoWoP still faces significant technical challenges, and the reliance on ABF substrates is unlikely to change in the short term. The research report points out that the complexity of technological conversion and the risks of supply chain restructuring make large-scale adoption of CoWoP unrealistic in the short term.

However, Morgan Stanley believes that although large-scale application is unlikely in the short term, it cannot be ruled out that NVIDIA is concurrently developing CoWoP technology.

High Technical Barriers: CoWoP Faces Process Challenges

CoWoP technology requires the line/space (L/S) of the PCB (printed circuit board) to be reduced to below 10/10 microns, which is comparable to the current standards of ABF substrates.

Morgan Stanley stated in the research report that the current L/S of high-density interconnect (HDI) PCBs is 40/50 microns, and even the substrate-like PCBs (SLP) used for iPhone motherboards only reach 20/35 microns. Reducing the L/S of PCBs from 20/35 microns to below 10/10 microns presents significant technical difficulties.

Morgan Stanley analyst Howard Kao pointed out that this technical barrier is one of the main reasons why Rubin Ultra is unlikely to adopt CoWoP.

Morgan Stanley's research shows that the next-generation GPU still relies on traditional packaging paths, meaning that Rubin and Rubin Ultra will continue to use ABF substrates. The ABF substrate of Rubin Ultra is larger and has more layers compared to Rubin, which is contrary to the technical path of CoWoP.

Supply Chain Risks Hinder Technological Transition

In addition to the complexity of the technology, Morgan Stanley also stated that transitioning from CoWoS to CoWoP would bring significant yield risks and related supply chain restructuring. Considering that the target product will enter mass production within a year, this technological transition is not commercially logical.

Morgan Stanley noted that TSMC's CoWoS yield is currently close to 100%, and switching technologies based on such a high yield presents unnecessary risks.

The analysts believe that technological conversion not only involves changes in process technology but will also affect the reconfiguration of the entire supply chain ecosystem, which has high complexity and risks for implementation in the short term.

CoWoP Technology Still Holds Potential Advantages

Although large-scale application is unlikely in the short term, CoWoP technology still has potential advantages. According to previous articles from Jianwen, the advantages of CoWoP technology include:

The signal path is shorter, reducing attenuation and loss; heat dissipation performance is significantly improved, suitable for >1000W level GPUs; power integrity is better, and response speed is faster; it addresses the capacity bottleneck issue of organic substrates.

Morgan Stanley stated that the goals of adopting CoWoP include solving the substrate warping issue, increasing the NVLink coverage on the PCB without the need for a substrate between the chip and the PCB, achieving higher heat dissipation efficiency without the need for a packaging lid, and eliminating capacity bottlenecks of certain packaging materials.

In addition, the analysts do not rule out the possibility that NVIDIA is concurrently developing CoWoP technology as a supplement to the current mass production technology to address substrate warping issues, resolve supply tightness of specific packaging materials, or simplify GPU board manufacturing processes