Chinese semiconductor industry

In recent years, the demand for chips in emerging fields such as new energy vehicles has continued to grow, and the demand for wafer foundry capacity has further overlapped and fissured. The capacity expansion of domestic semiconductor manufacturing companies has provided a strong impetus for the growth of the domestic semiconductor equipment market.

"Although the semiconductor industry's prosperity has declined since last year and it has not yet completely emerged from the U-shaped bottom, this is a good opportunity for equipment companies to concentrate on product development and verification. " Zhou Weifang pointed out. This is because the research and development cycle of semiconductor equipment is quite long. After the α equipment is mass-produced, it takes at least 6 months to conduct on-site verification at the customer's factory. Only after passing the verification will the customer place an order. The cycle usually exceeds one year. "If the wafer factory is in the golden period of capacity expansion, most of the production capacity and manpower will have to serve the mass production line, and there will be no time to verify new machines. Therefore, the cycle of the entire semiconductor industry and the development cycle of equipment companies are inversely related. It is also an excellent opportunity for the growth of equipment companies, and Jiaxin Semiconductor will seize the current time window for the growth of equipment companies."

Regarding the company's development plan, she emphasized that first, focus on the main process equipment such as thin film deposition, etching, rapid heat treatment and exhaust gas treatment that Jiaxin Semiconductor currently covers, and continuously improve and strengthen it to create a complete one- stop The target coverage area of front-end equipment solutions that accounts for more than 50% of the value of the entire wafer fab equipment.
Secondly, we provide more process know-how services and customized needs to meet customer needs to help customers better use equipment.

Zhou Weifang likens semiconductor equipment to the tools used by chefs for cooking. Some chefs use these tools to cook home-cooked dishes, while some chefs can make Manchu and Han banquets. The core know-how of a wafer fab is how to use hundreds of front-end process equipment. , to produce chips or devices with good yield and performance. This is the key to testing the manufacturing capabilities and process level of the wafer factory. "Factory construction and production expansion have been rapid in the past two years, but there is a shortage of domestic process talent reserves that truly understand semiconductor manufacturing processes, and domestic equipment is not well accepted by customers. This is why it was so difficult to promote domestic equipment in the past. Because workers want to do their job well, You must first sharpen your tools. If the tools are not easy to use or used incorrectly, you will get half the result with twice the effort," she emphasized.

As overseas countries increase their impact on the domestic semiconductor industry, the localization of upstream links is forced to accelerate. However, the process of gradually shifting from a production line under an international supply chain system to partially domestically produced and then fully domestically produced may be painful and may take more than five years. Zhou Weifang emphasized that although it is painful, this is the final idea. More and more forward-looking Fabs with strategic vision and industrial ambitions are beginning to increase the proportion of domestic equipment used. First solve the problem of "can't buy it", and then gradually solve the problem of "is it easy to use".

"In the context of these demands, the thinking of semiconductor equipment companies has begun to shift from selling equipment to providing processes, know-how, and services. This is what customers really want." Zhou Weifang said .
At present, Jiaxin Semiconductor has subsidiaries Jiaxin Jianeng, Jiaxin Hongyang and new product research and development departments. It has attracted many mature expert teams from around the world and has formed multiple semiconductor front-end core equipment product lines. The cumulative order amount since its establishment in 2021 has exceeded 470 million yuan, and it has obtained rapid thermal processing (RTP) equipment, silicon nitride, sidewalls, metal plasma etching machines, high-density plasma thin film deposition equipment (HDP-CVD), doped boron and phosphorus Silicon dioxide thin film chemical deposition equipment (SACVD), silicon dioxide plasma thin film deposition equipment (PECVD), titanium/titanium nitride deposition equipment (MOCVD), aluminum copper metal sputtering equipment (Metal Sputter (Al/Ti/TiN)) , double combustion + double water washing exhaust gas treatment equipment and other types of equipment orders. The new production capacity base of Jiaxin Semiconductor, which was officially opened a few days ago, will formulate specific production capacity plans based on the expansion plans of downstream customers. At the same time, Jiaxin Semiconductor is actively expanding its national layout. Jiashan, Zhejiang, serves as the main R&D and manufacturing base. In addition, it also has other facilities in Tianjin, Service centers have been set up in Qingdao, Shanghai Pudong, Putian and Shenzhen to meet 7×24-hour customer service.
"Take a mature wafer factory with a monthly production capacity of 50,000 wafers as an example. Its investment in semiconductor equipment is about 5 billion to 8 billion yuan. If Jiaxin's equipment can cover multiple main processes such as thin film and etching, it can account for Accounting for about 40% of the total equipment investment." Zhou Weifang emphasized, "In addition, third-generation semiconductors and advanced packaging are also new tracks targeted by domestic equipment companies, but these areas still require the industry chain to solve corresponding technical and cost challenges, equipment needs Only then can we usher in an explosion.”​

In the localization of semiconductor equipment, the simultaneous growth of components is particularly important. It is reported that for equipment manufacturers, due to the extremely complex use environment, parts need to maintain a high degree of consistency and will not easily change suppliers. The verification procedures for semiconductor equipment components are quite complicated, and the cooperation from downstream customers is not high. In addition, during the long-term product iteration process, foreign parts manufacturers have formed a large amount of know-how, while domestic manufacturers have difficulty in obtaining verification opportunities and large-scale applications due to lack of experience and key technologies.
Zhou Weifang mentioned that when recommending equipment to wafer fab customers, they first care about whether the equipment is domestically produced, and secondly, they care about whether the core components in the equipment are domestically produced, especially such as pressure gauges, flow meters, E- The current localization ratio of parts such as chuck. The current improvement of localization is not only the improvement of equipment, but also forces the simultaneous realization of domestic substitution in the most difficult-to-enter areas such as parts and materials, which requires the joint efforts of the entire industry chain.
"The problem with our domestic parts is not that the technical indicators or life span are not up to standard, but that they have not been verified, and these parts have not been running marathons on the machine for several years, and problems may not be found. For example, the critical gas flow components In terms of indicators such as airtightness and corrosion resistance, problems may not be discovered without running the actual machine for two years. " Zhou Weifang pointed out.


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