The semiconductor bottleneck is shifting from transistor fabrication to assembly precision and bonding capacity, particularly hybrid bonding, which is crucial for thinner HBM stacks, denser I/O in chiplets, and photonics/CPO integration. Equipment leaders like Besi and Applied Materials are positioned to benefit from surging orders for hybrid bonders and integrated platforms.
Advanced packaging and hybrid bonding capacity are now binding constraints for next-gen AI hardware, shifting value to specialized equipment suppliers.