Glass Substrates: The Future of Advanced Electronic Packaging
Over the last decade, the semiconductor industry has reached the functional limits of organic laminates and silicon-based packaging. With Moore’s Law slowing and AI, 5G/6G, photonics, and high-performance compute (HPC) requirements driving unprecedented performance requirements, next-generation systems demand packaging platforms that organic laminates and silicon interposers simply can’t deliver.
The answer isn’t a new flavor of silicon; it’s advanced glass substrates.
Glass substrates deliver the electrical, mechanical, and thermal characteristics required for high-performance electronics, including RF modules, antenna-in-package (AiP), photonics packaging, thermal management for high performance compute (HPC), and dense system-in-package (SiP) architectures. As advanced semiconductor packaging shifts toward 3DHI and chiplet-based design, glass interposers and glass substrates are rapidly becoming the industry’s preferred platform.
Unmatched RF and High-Frequency Performance
Advanced glass substrates provide a wide range of tunable dielectric constant (Dk 3.5–7.0) and an exceptionally low loss tangent (<0.001 @ 30 GHz). These properties dramatically reduce insertion loss and preserve signal integrity at both sub-20 GHz and mmWave frequencies. By contrast, organic laminates exhibit significantly higher loss, and silicon introduces excessive dielectric loading.
For applications such as 5G/6G modules, RF seekers, optical-RF systems, and high data-rate SerDes, glass substrates and glass integrated passive devices (glass IPDs) offer the wideband, low-loss platform required for emerging high-frequency applications.
CTE-Aligned Material for Advanced Stacking
Glass substrates achieve a coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of 3–8 ppm/°C, range that spans from silicon-matched to intermediate between silicon and copper. This alignment minimizes warpage when integrating large dies such as GPUs, HBMs, and photonic engines on glass interposers or wafer-level packages. The result is thinner assemblies, improved yields, and more reliable 3D stacking. For chiplet and heterogeneous integration, this is a key advantage over both silicon interposers and organic cores.
High-Density Through-Glass Vias via Low-Cost Batch Processing
3DGS’s proprietary APEX® photosensitive glass enables wafer-level batch manufacturing of highly uniform through-glass vias (TGVs) on 150 mm and 200 mm glass wafers. This scalable process reduces substrate cost while supporting extremely dense via arrays and fine-pitch routing down to 10/10 µm line/space.
Unlike laser-drilled substrates, APEX® Glass produces micro-fracture-free vias, improving signal integrity and long-term reliability for RF modules, glass interposers, photonics packaging, and advanced and 3D heterogeneous integration (3DHI) architectures. The ultra-smooth surface and precise via geometry create a low-loss platform ideal for high-frequency and high-density interconnect (HDI) systems.
True TGVs with Superior Reliability
3DGS process allows formation of hollow or copper-filled TGVs with near-vertical sidewalls and high aspect ratios, achieving up to 50 µm vias in 400 µm thick glass (8:1 Aspect Ratio). Because the via structure is predominantly glass rather than copper, CTE-induced stress is minimal. Reliability exceeds 5,000 thermal cycles (–55 to +125 °C), making these TGVs ideal for designs requiring high via counts, ultra-low RF loss, and enhanced photonic or sensing performance.
Precision Manufacturing with Wafer-Level Compatibility
APEX® Glass is processed using standard fabrication tools, allowing glass substrates to leverage the precision, automation, and scalability of established semiconductor manufacturing. With no thinning or carrier-wafer steps required—and glass inherently lower cost than silicon—the overall cost per device is significantly reduced while delivering superior electrical and thermal performance. This positions glass as the optimal platform for advanced semiconductor and photonics packaging at scale.
3DGS: The Pure-Play Glass Foundry
3D Glass Solutions (3DGS) is the most advanced pure-play glass foundry delivering production-ready glass interposers, AiP substrates, glass IPDs, and fan-out glass packages with integrated TGVs, multilayer copper RDL, and wafer-level reliability today.
If you’re designing next-generation AI accelerators, 5G/6G front-end modules, photonic systems, or advanced 3DHI architectures, it’s time to design on glass, not around it.
The future of advanced packaging isn’t silicon. It’s Glass.