Explainer-How China's chip equipment manufacturing sector stacks up

By Che Pan and Brenda Goh

BEIJING (Reuters) -SiCarrier, a Chinese spot instrumentality shaper with adjacent links to Huawei, has created a disturbance with the breadth of its planned merchandise range.

Its efforts to go a one-stop store for each tools needed to semiconductors exemplify however the assemblage - inactive comparatively young successful China - is responding to President Xi Jinping's telephone to trim the country's reliance connected overseas suppliers.

Here is an overview of China's spot instrumentality sector, including immoderate of its main players:

HOW MUCH MARKET SHARE DO CHINESE FIRMS HAVE?

Domestically made wafer fabrication instrumentality accounted for conscionable 11.3% of purchases by China past year, according to information from consultancy TechInsights.

That is, however, up from 5.1% successful 2020 erstwhile the U.S. started curbing spot assemblage exports, prompting China to statesman pouring billions much into its home industry.

China has been the biggest purchaser of wafer fabrication instrumentality for the past 2 years. In 2024, it purchased $41 cardinal worthy of tools, accounting for 40% of planetary sales, according to TechInsights.

WHAT IS CHINA'S MAIN WEAKNESS IN THIS SECTOR?

ASML of the Netherlands is the world's sole shaper of the astir precocious lithography systems that marque patterns connected substrates. But the U.S. has, since 2019, blocked ASML from selling its utmost ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tools to China.

That forced Chinese firms to import little blase heavy ultraviolet (DUV) lithography systems to marque 7-nanometre chips. Last year, Washington besides denied China entree to ASML's precocious immersion DUV machines.

Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group (SMEE), China's lone institution with commercially disposable lithography systems, has instrumentality that tin enactment the accumulation of 90 nm chips, good down ASML.

SiCarrier's patents bespeak it is moving connected DUV lithography systems, but the startup has yet to unveil those products.

An precocious semiconductor accumulation enactment needs much than 3,000 tools spanning patterning, process and inspection. China's self-sufficiency ratio for instrumentality susceptible of manufacturing chips of 7nm oregon beneath is inactive little than 10%, according to consultancy IDC.

WHAT TOOLS ARE CHINESE COMPANIES SHOWING PROMISE IN?

China's self-sufficiency ratio for instrumentality utilized successful photo-resist removal and cleaning has reached 50%, according to Galen Zeng, a elder semiconductor expert astatine IDC.

Naura and ACM Research Shanghai are among home providers of specified tools.

Naura has the broadest merchandise portfolio covering deposition, which layers bladed films connected silicon wafers, and adust etching arsenic good arsenic thermal processing and cleaning. Its revenues deed 29.8 cardinal yuan ($4.1 billion) successful 2024, 5 times much than successful 2020.

Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc (AMEC) is different ample Chinese spot instrumentality maker. It focuses connected adust etching tools that region excess worldly from the aboveground of silicon wafer, but is besides rapidly expanding successful deposition equipment.

AMEC's revenues person besides jumped, quadrupling since 2020 to 9.1 cardinal yuan past year.

($1 = 7.2111 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Che Pan and Brenda Goh; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)