The photoresist market is dominated by Japan and Germany, and NU Optronics is breaking the monopoly. Perhaps most people do not know what photoresist, as if the printmaking process requires the use of ink. It is easy to see that the quality of photoresist is closely related to the yield of the chip.
However, the global photoresist market is Japan, Germany and other countries occupy more than 80% of the share of enterprises, especially Japan's "chemical three giants", including JSR, TOK, Shin-Etsu, and the three giants or the world's only supply of EUV photoresist enterprises. Under the monopoly of foreign enterprises, domestic semiconductor companies can only realize production through the import of photoresists. Therefore, Nanda Optoelectronics realize the strong rise of domestic photoresist, can promote the development of photoresist industry.
Domestic photoresist to break the monopoly of Japanese companies, the two difficulties faced. In the high-end photoresist market, Japanese companies are more out of a high degree of monopoly. As our country is highly dependent on imported photoresists, whether it is R & D technology or market scale, domestic enterprises and international giants have an obvious gap. Under heavy restrictions, the domestic photoresist to break the monopoly of Japanese companies there are two main difficulties.
One: the threshold of the photoresist industry is getting higher and higher, not only need to invest a lot of money and technology, but also need a group of professionals. It is worth mentioning that the photoresist has very strict requirements for consistency and stability. As long as there is a problem with the quality of the photoresist, it will bring serious losses. In addition, the photoresist must meet the needs of differentiated applications, adjusted in accordance with the needs of different customers and application scenarios and so on. This shows that the breakdown of photoresist is complex and varied, and it is simply not possible to achieve standardization and modularity.
Second: Because of the long verification cycle of photoresist, downstream customers will not change the photoresist manufacturer at will. In this case, the domestic photoresist is difficult to break the current development pattern.
Of course, this situation does not indicate that the domestic photoresist is hopeless to break the tradition. With the accumulation of technology, today's Nanda Optoelectronics has released two photoresist production lines, ArF photoresist is widely launched customer verification tasks to further expand the commercial scale. During this period, Nanda Optoelectronics not only released many intermediate materials monopolized by foreign companies, but also discovered many important data that determine the performance of photoresist, which promoted the production and manufacturing of domestic photoresist. In order to develop a more perfect photoresist, NUIST has invested a lot of money and manpower. In China's semiconductor materials industry, Nanda Photonics has been in the forefront of the growth rate of R & D expenditure and the proportion of total revenue.
Domestic photoresist will not be "necked", the monopoly of Japanese enterprises was broken. Surprisingly, NU Optronics only took a year, 193nm ArF photoresist R & D project through the use of certification, and got the first photoresist orders, is currently in small batch sales.
It can be seen that China has broken the monopoly of Japanese companies in the photoresist industry, and opened up a new path of development. According to the analysis of the current test results, the performance of the ArF photoresist under Nanda Optoelectronics is basically at the same level with the photoresist products developed by Japanese companies, and has realized the localization and localization of ArF photoresist, and has become the most advanced photoresist products in China, successfully breaking the situation of the monopoly of the Japanese companies for a long time.
In the Nanda photoelectric held on the results of the General Assembly, Nanda photoelectric disclosure: the company independently developed ArF photoresist products and industrialization projects to build a 25-ton photoresist production line. At the same time, Nanda photoelectric has been in the lithography, raw materials and production equipment layout. As the main raw materials of photoresist is our independent research and development, and joint Chinese enterprises *** with the development of production equipment, so there will be no "stuck" risk.
Photoresist is an important material for chip production, mainly used in photolithography. If there is no photoresist, then the photolithography machine is just a pile of expensive scrap metal.
Therefore, it is urgent to realize the domestic substitution of photoresist. Successfully break the monopoly of Japanese companies, Nanda photoelectric independent development of photoresist products are currently being verified, in the future development is expected to get more orders for photoresist. The current Nanda photoelectric company has become a domestic photoresist alternative to the corporate giants, in the Nanda photoelectric and other domestic enterprises under the active struggle, I believe that China can make a major breakthrough in the high-end photoresist market. In this regard, you have any unique insights?