🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

The story behind ASE’s growth is a multi-billion dollar bet on AI

• ASE expects capital spending of about US$4.5 billion in 2025, around twice its 2024 outlay 1.
• Over 60% of machinery capital goes to leading-edge advanced packaging (technologies that connect multiple chips and components into a single high-performance package) 1. Another 30% goes to high-end testing (advanced methods to verify chips meet performance and reliability requirements) 1.
• The plan supports Leading-Edge Advanced Packaging (LEAP) services, with revenue expected to rise from US$250 million in 2023 to more than US$1.6 billion in 2025 1. This also supports the 2026 target referenced in the article 1.

Why chip packaging is no longer the boring part of the semiconductor industry

• Packaging now drives much of the performance in AI chips, rather than serving as a final assembly step 2.
• Spending at this scale raises the cost to compete, helping ASE pull further ahead of smaller outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) rivals such as Amkor 3.
• More of the supply chain flows through a smaller group of high-capability partners, including ASE 4. Fabless AI chip designers (companies that design chips but outsource manufacturing) depend more on those partners 4. The same partners also enable chiplet-based designs (architectures that combine multiple smaller chips into one system) used in newer AI hardware 4.