# South Korea funds advanced chip packaging and backside power pilot lines

*The trade ministry establishes dedicated testbeds and research grants to close back-end gaps and scale next-generation wafer architectures for domestic foundries.*

**Published:** August 28, 2026  
**By:** Ji-woo Han  
**Section:** Semiconductors & AI Hardware — South Korea  
**Format:** Policy Tracker  

**Source:** https://eastasiabrief.com/semiconductors/south-korea-funds-advanced-chip-packaging-backside-power-pilot-66  
**Publisher:** East Asia Brief (https://eastasiabrief.com/)

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## What to know

- The state-backed project addresses a structural asymmetry in South Korea's semiconductor manufacturing value chain.
- The initiative operationalizes the government's 274.
- A primary technical pillar of the newly funded testbeds centers on Backside Power Delivery Network, or BSPDN, architectures.

![Industry professionals review technical schematics and digital data during a semiconductor development meeting in a boardroom. (AI-generated image)](https://eastasiabrief.com/media/2026-08-28-797325e03282.png)
*Industry professionals review technical schematics and digital data during a semiconductor development meeting in a boardroom. (AI-generated image)*

South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy has finalized an operational funding plan to construct dedicated open-access testbeds for advanced semiconductor packaging and backside power delivery network technologies under the Act on Special Measures for Strengthening and Protecting the Competitiveness of the National High-Tech Strategic Industry. The initiative allocates targeted capital grants and equipment subsidies to establish high-density heterogeneous integration lines, fine-pitch wafer-level packaging facilities, and backside power routing pilot infrastructure accessible to domestic fabless design houses, foundry operators, and semiconductor equipment suppliers.

The state-backed project addresses a structural asymmetry in South Korea's semiconductor manufacturing value chain. While South Korean memory manufacturers Samsung Electronics and SK hynix maintain more than 60 percent of the worldwide memory supply, South Korean companies collectively hold less than 10 percent of the global market for outsourced semiconductor assembly and test services and advanced back-end processing. As front-end lithography scaling encounters steep physical resistance and escalating wafer processing costs below the 2-nanometer node, advanced multi-die packaging and power delivery reconfiguration have become critical determinants of compute density and energy efficiency in artificial intelligence accelerators.

The initiative operationalizes the government's 274.4 billion won ($200 million) advanced packaging research and development program alongside the broader 26 trillion won semiconductor financial support package administered by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Under the project framework, the ministry is deploying capital across three core focus areas: foundational multi-die packaging, domestic supply-chain commercialization, and international pilot-line integration. The testbed infrastructure will provide domestic toolmakers and electronic materials manufacturers with standardized test vehicles, production-grade 300mm evaluation wafers, and direct qualification channels with primary integrated device manufacturers.

A primary technical pillar of the newly funded testbeds centers on Backside Power Delivery Network, or BSPDN, architectures. BSPDN relocates the metal interconnects that route operating current to transistors from the front side of the wafer to the reverse side, eliminating interconnect bottlenecks and mitigating parasitic voltage drop across dense standard cells. Implementing backside power routing requires specialized manufacturing steps, including extreme wafer thinning, high-precision carrier wafer bonding, backside through-silicon via formation, and backside chemical mechanical planarization. The government-funded pilot line allows domestic equipment developers to test precision bonding systems, edge-trimming tools, and low-damage chemical formulations on live device wafers before deployment in high-volume production lines.

The program also establishes evaluation lines for 2.5D and 3D heterogeneous packaging, prioritizing high-density organic interposers, panel-level redistribution layers, fine-pitch microbump assembly, and direct copper-to-copper hybrid bonding. These advanced packaging capabilities are necessary to assemble high-bandwidth memory stacks and compute chiplets on high-performance computing modules. By establishing shared cleanroom infrastructure equipped with high-accuracy pick-and-place bonder units, advanced inspection metrology, and vacuum lamination systems, the ministry aims to lower capital entry barriers for domestic outsourced assembly and test providers, including Hana Micron and Nepes, alongside precision equipment developers such as Hanmi Semiconductor.

For global materials and equipment procurement leads, the launch of state-supported testbeds alters the supplier qualification timeline in South Korea. Domestic suppliers of epoxy molding compounds, photosensitive polyimides, temporary bonding adhesives, and CMP slurries will now conduct thermal cycling, warpage measurement, and electrical validation on shared lines without consuming commercial fab capacity at Samsung Electronics or SK hynix. This shared testing protocol shortens the feedback loop between materials synthesis and fab-line qualification, enabling domestic suppliers to provide documented reliability datasets to international tier-one buyers.

The policy framework integrates domestic testbed operations with international research consortia, including IMEC in Belgium and the Albany NanoTech Complex in the United States, to align Korean process standards with global foundry design rules. The ministry has scheduled the initial equipment installation tenders for the pilot testbeds for the fourth quarter of 2026, with the first multi-project test wafers slated for processing across the joint packaging lines by mid-2027.

## Impact map

| Event | Korea | China | Japan | Global impact |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| BSPDN & Packaging Testbeds | pilot lines & subsidies | packaging competition | equipment & bonding tools | AI chiplet supply |

## In this story

- **Companies:** Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Hanmi Semiconductor, Hana Micron, Nepes
- **Tickers:** 005930.KS, 000660.KS, 042700.KS, 067310.KS, 033640.KS
- **Exposed:** Intel, TSMC, Tokyo Electron, Applied Materials
- **Policy:** Subsidies, Economic Security, Tax Credits
- **Impact:** Capex, Supply Chain, Order Book, Cost Structure

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Cite as: East Asia Brief, "South Korea funds advanced chip packaging and backside power pilot lines," August 28, 2026. https://eastasiabrief.com/semiconductors/south-korea-funds-advanced-chip-packaging-backside-power-pilot-66