TSMC SoIC Capacity to Double, NVIDIA and Apple to Adopt

According to the latest industry rumors, NVIDIA's next-generation Rubin GPU will adopt TSMC's System-on-Integrated Chip (SoIC) packaging technology. This will mark the company's first GPU to incorporate Chiplet design. Market expectations are high, as TSMC's SoIC is poised to surpass the CoWoS (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate) technology and become the new industry focal point, with demand expected to grow significantly.

The introduction of NVIDIA's Rubin GPU will not only feature a redesigned architecture but also integrate industry-leading components, such as HBM4 memory. TSMC has already begun accelerating the construction of new facilities in Taiwan, shifting focus from the current CoWoS technology to SoIC. With major players like NVIDIA, AMD, and Apple planning to launch SoIC-based products in the near future, TSMC anticipates massive market demand for this advanced technology.

Industry analysts predict that TSMC's SoIC production capacity will reach 15,000 to 20,000 units by the end of this year, with a planned expansion to double capacity next year. The SoIC technology allows multiple Chiplets to be integrated into a single high-performance package, meaning that different types of chips, such as GPUs, memory, and I/O, can be placed on the same wafer. This offers greater design flexibility and optimization for specific applications. Currently, AMD's 3D V-Cache processors are based on SoIC technology, and NVIDIA and Apple are expected to follow suit.

NVIDIA’s Rubin architecture will be the first to implement SoIC design. Its Vera Rubin NVL144 platform is said to feature the Rubin GPU with two chips near the size of a reticle, providing FP4 computation performance of up to 50 PFLOPS, and will be equipped with 288GB of HBM4. The higher-end NVL576 platform will include the Rubin Ultra GPU with four reticle-sized chips, delivering FP4 computation performance of 100 PFLOPS and supporting 16 HBM4e chips, with a total capacity of up to 1TB.

Additionally, Apple is also planning to adopt SoIC technology. The upcoming M5 chip will feature SoIC packaging and be integrated into Apple's internally developed AI servers. Although detailed information about the M5 chip is still limited, it is confirmed that the chip will be used in future iPad and MacBook models.

TSMC expects SoIC production capacity to reach 20,000 units per month by the end of 2025. However, until the launch of NVIDIA's Rubin GPU (expected between late 2025 and early 2026), TSMC's primary packaging focus will remain on CoWoS technology.