Samsung Electro-Mechanics to make debut at Semicon Taiwan 2026, unveiling glass substrate roadmap for AI era

Samsung Electro-Mechanics has announced its first-ever participation in Semicon Taiwan 2026, Asia's largest semiconductor exhibition, which opens in Taipei on Wednesday.

The event, held on home turf of TSMC — the world's largest foundry — will draw Taiwan's semiconductor companies alongside the three leading memory chip makers — Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Micron — as well as tech giants Nvidia, Google and Microsoft.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics is drawing attention as a rare Korean components maker to enter what the industry calls the "semiconductor technology battleground" of Semicon Taiwan.

The company will put forward Vice President Kang Du-an, widely regarded as a glass substrate expert, as its keynote speaker to present on advanced packaging substrate technology targeting the AI market.

According to industry sources, a program called the "Taiwan Strategic Materials Conference" is scheduled for the second day of Semicon Taiwan 2026, which runs Wednesday through Thursday at the Nangang Exhibition Center in Taipei.

The conference will feature presentations from TSMC, Nvidia and Micron of the United States, Germany's Merck and the Netherlands' ASM, among others, on materials and components technologies accelerating semiconductor innovation in the AI era.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics is also on the lineup. Kang will deliver a keynote address under the theme "The Materials Race: Scaling Advanced Packaging Substrates for Next-Generation AI Infrastructure," introducing ongoing research and development efforts to improve power efficiency, input/output scalability and mass-production viability for advanced packaging substrates.

Kang spent 17 years at Intel from 2008 and is considered an authority in semiconductor packaging. He is particularly recognized as a pioneer in glass substrate technology — widely seen as a game changer for the semiconductor industry — having led its development at the forefront of the field.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics identified glass substrates as one of its key future businesses in 2024 and has been accelerating commercialization since recruiting Kang in August last year. He currently leads the development of the company's advanced packaging substrate technology roadmap and oversees technology marketing from its California subsidiary.

Glass substrates have emerged as a new battleground in the substrate industry as competition over AI semiconductor performance intensifies. They are drawing attention as an essential component for efforts to maximize performance by integrating multiple chips — including GPUs and HBM — into a single package.

Conventional plastic substrates have uneven surfaces that make it difficult to form fine circuits. When packaging multiple semiconductors — including CPUs, GPUs and memory chips — along with multilayer ceramic capacitors on a single substrate, silicon must be inserted as an intermediary to manage heat, causing the overall package to become thicker and prone to warping.

Glass substrates, by contrast, are thinner and smoother than plastic ones, making fine circuit formation easier and eliminating the need for silicon to address heat dissipation. This allows more chips to be mounted on a single substrate while reducing overall package thickness. Glass substrates are also harder than plastic, making them resistant to warping.

Absolics, a subsidiary of SKC that entered the glass substrate business early on, built a factory in the state of Georgia in 2023. On Friday, it decided to raise 404.3 billion won ($293 million) through a rights offering to secure funds for glass substrate testing and customer certification.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics has built and is operating a glass substrate pilot production line at its Sejong plant. Last month, it signed a definitive agreement with Dongwoo Fine-Chem — a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan's Sumitomo Chemical Group — to establish a joint venture for producing "glass core," a key material for glass substrates. Samsung Electro-Mechanics will contribute 480 billion won for a 66.2 percent stake, with the joint venture set to be incorporated by the end of the year.

During its second-quarter conference call last month, Samsung Electro-Mechanics said it had been collaborating with major tech customers in the data center segment on developing large-area, high-layer-count glass substrates, and that technical approvals and sample evaluations were underway with some customers. The company said it aims to begin full-scale operations in 2028 and intends to capture the market by responding promptly to customer demand.

Meanwhile, executives from the three leading memory chip makers — Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Micron — will also appear at Semicon Taiwan 2026 to showcase next-generation DRAM and NAND memory chips in a display of technological competition.