[News] Intel Reportedly Taps Amkor’s Songdo Facility for EMIB Packaging in First-Ever Outsourcing Move

Buzz is building as tech giants like Google and Meta consider Intel’s EMIB advanced packaging, and Team Blue is going full throttle. ETNews reports that Intel is understood to have established its EMIB process at Amkor’s Songdo K5 facility in South Korea—its first-ever move to outsource such high-end packaging.

According to Amkor’s press release, the two companies forged a Strategic Partnership in April centered on EMIB assembly. Under the agreement, Amkor will roll out EMIB assembly at its facilities in Korea, Portugal, and the upcoming Arizona fab. The latest move appears to mark the first concrete step in bringing that pact to life.

ETNews notes that Intel, long handling EMIB packaging in its own U.S. and Malaysia fabs, is now shifting to an external site for the first time. The move, as per the report, may also imply that the Songdo K5 facility could handle both Intel’s chips and external orders.

The report adds that the choice of Amkor’s Songdo facility is seen as strategic: its state-of-the-art equipment can package semiconductors for North American giants like NVIDIA and Apple, while its infrastructure—covering materials, components, equipment, and skilled workforce—is well-equipped to support advanced packaging at scale.

The move dovetails with Amkor’s newly unveiled investment plan. As reported by Chosun Biz, the company has launched a 270 billion won project in South Korea earlier this month, marking the start with a groundbreaking ceremony for its Songdo plant test building in Incheon.

According to TrendForce, since announcing the launch of its standalone Intel Foundry Services (IFS) unit in 2021, Intel has spent years developing EMIB advanced packaging technology. The company has successfully implemented this technology in its own server CPU platforms, including Sapphire Rapids and Granite Rapids. As Google plans to implement EMIB in its 2027 TPU v9 and Meta considers it for its MTIA accelerators, EMIB is set to significantly boost IFS’s growth.

TrendForce notes that Intel’s EMIB-M—featuring MiM capacitors embedded in the substrate—has already entered mass production, while EMIB-T, which adds TSVs to the bridge, is expected to ramp between 2026 and 2027 with support for up to 12× reticle scaling.

Read more

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(Photo credit: Intel)