(Yicai) June 15 -- Shares of BOE Technology Group climbed after China’s largest display panel maker said its glass substrate pilot production line, tailored to meet the advanced packaging needs of computing chips, has started operation.

BOE [SHE: 000725] closed 6.3 percent up at CNY5.92 (87 US cents) in Shenzhen today. The stock has surged 43 percent in the past month.

With a capacity of 1,000 wafers per month, the pilot production line achieved full automation and came on stream in the first half of this year, making glass core substrates for advanced packaging of large-scale computing chips, Beijing-based BOE said at an investor relations event, adding that samples have already been sent to some domestic customers for technical testing.

BOE initiated technical research on chip packaging glass substrates in 2020, invested CNY390 million (USD57.7 million) to establish an innovative experimental platform in 2022, and then spent CNY993 million to build a pilot production line in 2024.

Over the past month, global chip giants have made moves in the glass substrate industry, drawing market attention. Nvidia unveiled on May 6 an investment of up to USD3.2 billion to acquire a stake in glass substrate giant Corning. Intel said on June 1 that it partnered with 3D Glass Solutions to invest USD3.3 billion in building a glass substrate factory in India.

On May 20, BOE announced it signed a memorandum of understanding with Corning to cooperate on multiple cutting-edge fields, including chip packaging glass substrates, foldable glass, and perovskite glass substrates, and explore new opportunities in the next-generation consumer electronics and computing fields.

Glass substrates are the development trend for future computing power chip packaging solutions. Compared to traditional Ajinomoto build-up film packaging substrates, they can enhance the transmission rate and computing density between chips inside servers, thus meeting the development needs of artificial intelligence, Li Yaqin, general manager of tech industry consulting firm Sigmaintell, told Yicai.

Chip packaging glass substrates are an emerging segment of the display panel industry that is poised to benefit from the dividends of AI development, said Chen Jun, deputy general manager and chief analyst at Sigmaintell. However, there are still numerous challenges in areas such as Through Glass Via technology, warping issues with large-sized panels, and improving overall yield rates, he added.

BOE is unlikely to start mass production of chip packaging carrier boards before 2028, he predicted.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione