DIGITIMES Insight: Intel, TSMC, Samsung converge on backside power — packaging becomes the next divide

Data center AI accelerator package power has climbed from about 500W in the A100 generation to roughly 3,500–4,000W for Rubin Ultra-class products expected in 2027, pushing supply current into the thousands of amperes. In conventional frontside power delivery, current must cross the full metal interconnect stack before reaching the transistors, while power and signal lines compete for routing resources. Intel Foundry estimates that raising a single compute package from 1kW to 5kW increases power delivery network I²R losses from 89W to 2,222W, cutting the share of input power reaching the transistors from 66.0% to 41.8%.