WinWay weighs Texas shift after AI chip testing surge in North America

US efforts to rebuild its semiconductor supply chain are exposing a critical gap in domestic packaging and testing capacity, a bottleneck that industry sources expect to ease only after 2028 as the US... Read original →

America’s push to rebuild its semiconductor supply chain is colliding head-on with a structural deficit in domestic OSAT capacity. WinWay’s potential move to Texas isn’t merely about meeting surging AI chip test demand—it’s a strategic hedge against both geopolitical volatility in Taiwan, China and tightening U.S. CHIPS Act compliance. Technically, the shortage of advanced packaging (e.g., CoWoS) will bottleneck HBM and GPU ramp timelines, forcing fabless firms to pre-reserve test slots. Compliance-wise, while onshoring reduces export control exposure, new OSAT fabs entail high CapEx and slow yield learning curves, inflating near-term costs by 15–20%. Competitors like TSMC and ASE are accelerating U.S. investments, while Chinese OSAT players target mid-tier segments. Over the next 18 months, U.S. packaging will remain heavily offshore-dependent; the ‘domestic loop’ is more political rhetoric than reality. The real long-tail impact? A global shift from Asia-centric OSAT concentration toward regional redundancy—at the cost of systemic efficiency.