Korea's HBM-related exports to Malaysia jump ~5.7× — packaging overflow, not a CoWoS heist
Chosun Biz, citing Korea Customs, reported that August exports to Malaysia under HS code 8542.32.3000, a multi-chip category that includes HBM, hit about US$1.62 billion, up 466.6% year on year, with tonnage rising from about 1.4 tons to 3.8 tons. TrendForce frames the same move as a 5.7-fold surge, and Malaysia's lane is now roughly half of Taiwan's for that code.
What happened
Chosun Biz (Jeong Du-yong, September 22, 2026), citing Korea Customs Service data, reports that August exports to Malaysia of multi-chip integrated circuits under HS code 8542.32.3000 reached about US$1.62 billion, up 466.6% from a year earlier. That customs code is a category that includes . It is not a line item for HBM alone. Export weight rose from about 1.4 tons to 3.8 tons, roughly 2.7 times. ’s September 22 synthesis frames the same customs move as a 5.7-fold surge in Korea’s HBM-related exports to Malaysia over one year, with Malaysia’s pace now roughly half of Taiwan’s on that advanced-packaging lane. Annual exports that sat near 130 billion won four years ago have grown into that half-Taiwan comparison, TrendForce says, citing Chosun.
The capacity names in the same reporting are mostly openings and plans. ASE opened its fifth Penang plant last year to strengthen advanced packaging. TF-AMD Microelectronics plans bumping and advanced packaging at Batu Kawan by the end of 2026. The Malaysia Advanced Packaging Consortium is working on -class test chips and prototypes with government support, with test facilities aimed at the end of 2026 and process validation in 2027. Malaysia’s investment agency, MIDA, says the country already handles about 13% of global assembly, test, and packaging, and is expanding into advanced packaging for AI and high-performance computing. An industry official quoted by Chosun says ’s packaging volumes in Malaysia are still relatively small.
A separate strand, in Economic Daily and TechPowerUp, leans on Intel’s Project Pelican and suggests CoWoS-class work is being diverted. That reading stays a hypothesis. Keep reportedly on any claim that Intel is the main reason for the export jump. The customs figures do not show Malaysia taking CoWoS from TSMC.
Why it matters
, , and custom AI chips still depend on the same advanced-packaging capacity. When Taiwan’s CoWoS-class queue is full, HBM has to be assembled somewhere else. Customs figures are a cleaner signal than another product launch. Korea’s HBM-related shipments to Malaysia, under that HS code, grew fast enough that Malaysia is now roughly half of Taiwan’s August pace for the code. Biwin’s Dongguan spending is the China version of the same theme: storage companies climbing into wafer-level packaging while Malaysia takes Korea’s HBM-related overflow. Two places, one packaging bottleneck. The Korean HBM business is already concentrated. The newer fact is where those stacks get packaged when Taiwan cannot take every wafer.
What to watch is whether the HS 8542.32.3000 lane to Malaysia stays above that half-Taiwan mark in fourth-quarter customs prints; whether ASE in Penang and TF-AMD in Batu Kawan disclose a real mix of HBM or other advanced packaging; whether the consortium hits its 2027 process-validation steps; and whether a major outlet, rather than a hypothesis, shows Intel’s Malaysia packaging volumes moving from “relatively small” to something material.
The Taiwan queue those exports do not replace is TSMC’s CoWoS allocation.