For glass to work as an advanced packaging interposer, the first hurdle is filling deep, straight TGVs with good copper. Tohoku University combines an electroless nickel seed, chemically tailored electroplating and HIP annealing to fill straight vias in 1 mm-thick glass void-free and grow >45 µm grains — a foundational breakthrough for glass TGVs.

After three years of hype, glass substrates finally reach the table in 2026, and the whole race hinges on one process: TGV. Why are Intel, TSMC and Samsung all betting on glass in the same year, and how can a technology with near-zero yield become the foundation of next-generation AI packaging?