Samsung Electronics (005930) has opened an advanced chip packaging research center in Yokohama, Japan, seeking to speed up development and deepen exchanges in a country that holds a strong position in back-end packaging materials.
Samsung held an opening ceremony on the 8th in Yokohama for the Advanced Package Lab (APL), Japan's Nikkei reported. The facility, located in the Minato Mirai district, has a total floor area of about 6,600 square meters — slightly smaller than a soccer field — and includes a clean room where equipment can be operated under actual chip production conditions.
Samsung set up the Japanese research base as competition in AI chips intensifies and the need for cooperation with Japan, which excels in back-end technology, has grown. Chipmaking is divided into front-end processes that form circuits on wafers and back-end processes that assemble chips, and analysts say back-end work is emerging as a new axis of competition as circuit miniaturization approaches its physical limits. Demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AI data centers has surged in particular, raising the importance of packaging technology that boosts performance by connecting multiple chips such as HBM and graphics processing units (GPUs). In advanced packaging, which is essential for artificial intelligence chips, Taiwan's foundry company TSMC ranks first globally, while South Korea's SK hynix (000660) leads in HBM. Samsung is expected to strengthen its competitiveness in both areas through closer cooperation with Japan.
Japan has built competitiveness in back-end materials on the strength of its chip materials industry. Sumitomo Bakelite holds about 40% of the global market for encapsulation materials, while Resonac and Mitsubishi Gas Chemical lead in substrate materials. Samsung works with more than 50 Japanese companies in AI chip back-end processes. Nikkei reported that having a research base in Japan will allow Samsung to evaluate new materials and complete prototyping locally, then apply only promising technologies to mass production lines in South Korea, accelerating research and development.
The Yokohama base will also receive large-scale subsidies from the Japanese government. Samsung has decided to invest 40 billion yen (about 348.9 billion won), of which 22.5 billion yen (196.2 billion won) will be provided by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. A total of 95 South Korean and Japanese researchers will work at the site on tasks including back-end materials evaluation and mass production technology development.
Fifteen major Japanese chip-related companies, including Tokyo Electron and Ibiden, attended the opening ceremony. Jun Young-hyun, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, said, "We will accelerate technology exchange between South Korea and Japan and become a driving force in growing the next-generation packaging industry together."
