Ajinomoto Fine-Techno
HQ JP50% share
Subsidiary of Ajinomoto Group; sole commercial producer of ABF (Ajinomoto Build-up Film) used in ~95% of CPU and GPU substrates worldwide. ABF was invented from waste byproducts of MSG manufacturing.
manufactured · input
ABF Substrate (Ajinomoto Build-up Film)
The organic insulating film used to build up multilayer printed circuit substrates for flip-chip BGA packages (high-end CPUs, GPUs, AI accelerators). Invented by Ajinomoto Fine-Techno — a subsidiary of the Japanese MSG/food company — in 1996. Ajinomoto held a near-monopoly for two decades; competitors Panasonic and Doosan are ramping but Ajinomoto retains dominant share. ABF substrate was the binding constraint during the 2020–2021 advanced chip package shortage.
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Source countries
3
Companies
1
Goods affected
0
Claims on record
What depends on it
Goods that need this input
1 essential American goods rely on abf substrate (ajinomoto build-up film) somewhere upstream in their supply chain.
Where it comes from
Source countries
Share of global supply, by country.
| Country | Share of supply |
|---|---|
| JPJapan | 78% |
| KRSouth Korea | 15% |
| TWTaiwan | 5% |
Who makes it
Supplier companies
3 companies produce abf substrate (ajinomoto build-up film).
Resonac Holdings (formerly Showa Denko + Hitachi Chemical)
HQ JP28% share
Resonac Holdings K.K. (Tokyo; TSE: 4004; formed 2023 by merger of Showa Denko K.K. and Hitachi Chemical Company Ltd.) is Japan's second-largest ABF substrate film producer after Ajinomoto Fine-Techno, and major semiconductor materials company. Resonac's semiconductor materials division produces ABF-equivalent build-up films under the brand name 'MCL' (Multilayer build-up resin for Core-Less substrates). The merger creating Resonac combined Showa Denko (industrial chemicals, graphite electrodes, specialty gases) with Hitachi Chemical (now Resonac Holdings; adhesives, printed circuit board materials, semiconductor packaging resins) — creating a $8B+ semiconductor materials company directly competing with Ajinomoto in FC-BGA substrates. Showa Denko had itself absorbed Hitachi Chemical in 2021 and rebranded to Resonac in 2023.
Doosan Electro-Materials
HQ KR15% share
Doosan Electro-Materials Co., Ltd. (Icheon, Gyeonggi-do South Korea; subsidiary of Doosan Group) is South Korea's primary ABF substrate film producer and the only significant non-Japanese competitor in the global ABF market. Doosan Electro-Materials produces CCL (Copper Clad Laminate), prepreg, and ABF-type build-up films for FC-BGA advanced package substrates. Doosan Group's electronics materials subsidiary benefits from Korean semiconductor supply chain proximity (Samsung, SK Hynix substrate assemblers). Doosan Electro-Materials was established in the 1980s as a PCB laminate producer and entered the FC-BGA substrate film market in the 2010s as demand from Korean chip packaging companies grew.