According to the data released on the official website of the General Administration of Customs on November 18, China imported 4226 sets of semiconductor manufacturing equipment in October, with an import volume of about US $237 million, down 39.8% and 23.1% respectively compared with the same period last year. In October, the import volume from Japan, the United States and other major equipment exporting countries declined, while the import volume from the Netherlands, which is the headquarters of ASML, a leading photolithography company, doubled.

Localization rate of semiconductor equipment is about 36%

This year's midterm report shows that the performance of domestic semiconductor equipment listed companies has accelerated, the orders of domestic semiconductor equipment listed companies have generally increased at a high rate, and the contractual liabilities have increased significantly. By the end of the second quarter of 2022, the contract liabilities of the former equipment of the equipment company had generally continued to grow.

It is understood that Tianfeng Securities has taken the five wafer factories that have conducted large-scale public bidding since 2022 as a statistical sample. From January to July 2022, five wafer factories completed a total of 230 domestic equipment bidding, with a localization rate of about 36%.

At present, in the progress of the domestic semiconductor equipment industry, the most prominent is that the localization rate of five integrated circuit equipment exceeds 20%. The highest localization rate is the glue remover, up to 74%; Cleaning equipment in turn, 31%; Oxidation diffusion, 29%; Ionic dry etching machine, localization rate is 22%; Chemical mechanical polishing machine, 21%. At present, domestic manufacturers have realized partial substitution of domestic testing equipment, etching equipment, PVD and CVD equipment, oxidation diffusion equipment, etc., especially the rapid substitution of testing equipment.

Wide space for equipment

As an important participant in the global semiconductor industry, China's semiconductor equipment growth rate is significantly higher than that of the world. According to SEMI statistics, in 2021, the sales volume will increase by 58% to US $29.6 billion, accounting for 28.86% of the global semiconductor equipment market, making it the largest semiconductor equipment market in the world for the second time.

At present, the global semiconductor industry is dominated by American and Japanese manufacturers, including American Applied Materials (AMAT) and Lam Research, Japan's Tokyo Electronics (TEL) and Hitachi High Tech (HITACHI) and other international well-known enterprises. In addition, ASML in the Netherlands plays an important role in the field of semiconductor equipment with its lithography machine.

According to the analysis of IC TIME, the core equipment such as lithography machine, etching machine and film deposition equipment for advanced manufacturing process is still relatively blank in China. Shanghai Microelectronics Equipment Co., Ltd. is the main domestic enterprise with lithography machine production capacity.

After years of technical research and support from national projects, domestic semiconductor equipment companies can now meet the needs of most mature processes (logic chips of 28nm and above) and a few advanced processes of downstream wafer manufacturers. Among the main equipment of logic chips of 28nm and above, NAND memory chips of less than 128 layers and DRAM chips of more than 20nm, domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers have achieved most coverage of processes, technologies and products, including etching, film deposition, cleaning, adhesive development and other links.

Domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers have certain market share advantages in equipment markets such as testing machines, sorters and probe tables, and have formed preliminary technical benchmarking with overseas traditional manufacturers in core processes such as deposition, CMP and testing machines. Domestic semiconductor equipment companies, represented by North Huachuang, have continuously improved the platform layout of their products. On the other hand, on behalf of domestic semiconductor equipment companies such as Tuojing Technology and Huahai Qingke, they have occupied leading supply shares in their respective fields of expertise, constantly consolidating technical and market barriers.

Domestic substitution still requires full horsepower

As Moore's Law approaches the limit, extremely sophisticated semiconductor devices are of great importance and have a broad market. The front and back processes of semiconductor integrated circuits are very complex, involving a variety of processes and equipment. Although there are Beifang Huachuang, Zhongwei and other companies in China, in fact, different processes, different nodes, different products and similar equipment are also very different. At present, although it can meet the needs of some mature processes (above 28nm), there are few advanced process nodes below 14nm, and there are still many things to be supplemented.

At present, the most troublesome thing is the research and development of lithography equipment. Although Shanghai Microelectronics and other enterprises are conducting continuous technological research and exploration in the field of lithography, their overall strength is far from the international leader.

In addition to photolithography, domestic semiconductor equipment has shortcomings in some advanced manufacturing processes in their respective fields, including deep groove etching equipment, advanced atomic layer deposition equipment, measurement equipment, etc. The domestic high-end wafer manufacturing equipment is seriously insufficient, and the film deposition equipment, CMP equipment, ion implanter and other previous equipment besides the lithography machine are also monopolized by foreign countries.

At present, due to many external restrictions, China's advanced manufacturing process capacity expansion is limited. At present, upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain are trying to tackle semiconductor core equipment, but it is still difficult to completely replace semiconductor equipment in China. For example, the problem of photolithography machine itself involving multiple components such as light source and lens is a system engineering; In terms of talents, the United States, Japan, Europe and other places have great advantages in semiconductor equipment talents. Countries are attracting and retaining talents by increasing salaries and subsidies. The attraction of talents is the core of the semiconductor industry. The research and development of domestic advanced semiconductor equipment has certain obstacles in terms of talents.

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