Samsung Electro-Mechanics has been supplying glass substrate samples to Apple since last year and the AI chip industry is paying attention.

TheElec sources confirmed this week that Samsung’s advanced packaging division has been feeding Apple experimental substrate materials, the kind that replace the organic core inside traditional flip chip-ball grid array packaging with glass.

Apple’s AI server chip is being developed with Broadcom and is expected to be manufactured at TSMC. Samsung Electro-Mechanics is running a pilot glass substrate line, while mass production isn’t targeted until after 2027.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics has been running glass substrate trials with Broadcom since last year too. Broadcom sits at the center of the custom AI chip market, co-designing silicon with Google, Meta, OpenAI, and now Apple.

If Samsung locks in Broadcom as a customer, those substrates could end up inside chips built for half of Silicon Valley. But Apple coming directly to Samsung changes the texture of this story.

Apple has a documented habit of bringing things in-house. That said, the Cupertino giant doesn’t rely on a partner, study the space intensely, then quietly build the capability internally and cut the partner out.

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