Chinese Mainland has a strong consumption capacity of semiconductor equipment. Therefore, major semiconductor equipment manufacturers are eyeing this cake closely. According to statistics, in 2021, the total capacity of domestic 12 inch wafer factories will be about 1.15 million pieces/month. From 2022 to 2023, the expansion of domestic local wafer factories is still expected to be in a fast climbing path. In 2022, the annual added capacity of 12 inch wafer factory projects will exceed 200000 pieces/month. In 2023, projects such as SMIC Capital, SMIC Orient, Huali No. 8 Factory, Huahong No. 9 Factory, Changjiang Storage Phase II, Changxin Phase II, Shilan Jike are expected to drive more capacity growth, Drive the capital expenditure of semiconductor equipment to further increase.
However, on the supply side, China's local equipment manufacturers have relatively little influence in the global market, and it is difficult to create pressure on international manufacturers. However, with the intensification of trade barriers, the tenacious growth of local equipment manufacturers, and the strong support of the government, local equipment manufacturers have more room for trial and error and growth, and the order volume has significantly increased in the past two years. Statistics show that many local semiconductor equipment enterprises have won large orders. In the fourth quarter of 2020, domestic equipment manufacturers won 82 contracts, a year-on-year increase of 100%. The order cycle lasts for 2-3 quarters. Revenue is confirmed in 2021, and the domestic market share of many equipment has increased significantly by more than 10%.
The revenue of domestic semiconductor equipment enterprises has broken through the profit inflection point of RMB 7-1 billion (according to statistics of domestic and foreign equipment enterprises, the revenue of RMB 7-1 billion is the profit inflection point range). If this trend continues, the localization rate of China's semiconductor equipment is expected to continue to increase in 2021. It is expected to occupy a place in the highly competitive international semiconductor equipment market.
It is estimated that the equipment localization rate of the three typical wafer factories is about 15% in general (based on the proportion of the number of equipment), including 16.3%, 15% and 12.8% for Changjiang Storage, Huahong Wuxi and Huali Integrated Equipment respectively. Among them, in terms of equipment localization, Changjiang Storage is partly because the equipment selection autonomy of IDM mode is relatively higher than that of the foundry; Huahong Wuxi and Huali Integration belong to Huahong Group. The localization rate of various types of equipment in Huahong Wuxi is mostly higher than Huali Integration, or mainly because the mature process of 90nm~55nm in Huahong Wuxi is easier to promote the localization of equipment than the relatively advanced 28nm~14nm process in Huali Integration.
In the market segment, the medium etcher is the dominant semiconductor equipment in China. At present, among the mainstream equipment in China, the localization rate of degumming equipment, etching equipment, heat treatment equipment, cleaning equipment, etc. has reached more than 20%. Among them, the largest market is etching equipment, and the representative manufacturers are Microenterprise and North Huachuang.
According to Yin Zhiyao, founder of Microelectronics, it is estimated that in the field of etching equipment, the domestic production rate is expected to reach 50% in the future. This is because of the high localization rate of etchers in the domestic core equipment (wafer processing), and the proportion is increasing year by year.
Medium and micro semiconductors have obvious advantages in the field of CCP etching. In terms of logic integrated circuit manufacturing, SMSE is a domestic equipment manufacturer that has entered the advanced process production line of TSMC. In 2017, SMSE etching equipment entered the 7nm production line of TSMC, and the 5nm process is under cooperation. At the same time, the company's etching equipment has entered domestic wafer manufacturers such as Changjiang Storage and Huahong Hongli. In terms of 3D NAND chip manufacturing, the CCP equipment technology of SMSS can be applied to the mass production of 64 layer chips. It is reported that the company is developing 96 layer and more advanced etching equipment and processes according to the needs of memory manufacturers.
In terms of physical film deposition (PVD), North Huachuang has a wide range of film deposition equipment products. Its 28nm hard mask PVD has achieved mass production, and copper interconnection PVD, 14nm hard mask PVD, Al PVD, LPCVD, ALD (atomic deposition) equipment has entered the production line validation stage. In April 2020, North Huachuang announced that its THEORISSN302D 12 inch silicon nitride deposition equipment had entered the leading enterprise of integrated circuit manufacturing in China. The delivery of this equipment means that the domestic vertical LPCVD equipment has made significant progress in the application and expansion of advanced integrated circuit manufacturing.
In terms of cleaning equipment, among Chinese wafer wet equipment manufacturers, the space alternating phase shift (SAPS) megasonic cleaning equipment and the sequential cavitation oscillation control (TEBO) megasonic cleaning equipment developed by Shengmei Semiconductor have successfully entered the integrated circuit production lines in South Korea and China. The cleaning equipment of North Huachuang has also successfully entered the international production line of SMIC. According to the statistics of Chinabidding.com, among the more than 200 cleaning equipment accumulatively purchased by Changjiang Storage, Huahong Wuxi, and Shanghai Huali Phase II projects, the suppliers are ranked according to the number of winning bidders, followed by Dean's, Shengmei, Lam, TEL, and North Huachuang, with their respective shares of 48%, 20.5%, 20%, 6%, and 1%.
In terms of polishing machines (CMP), China's major R&D units include Tianjin Huahai Qingke and 45 CETC Research Institutes, among which, Huahai Qingke's polishing machines have been put on trial in the SMIC international production line.