China’s chip-making tool industry unites behind self-sufficiency drive but huge challenges remain
- Representatives from hundreds of chip equipment firms are attending the China Semiconductor Equipment Annual Conference 2023
- Chinese chip-making tools and components makers have stepped up to try and fill the gap posed by tough US trade sanctions
China’s chip-making capabilities remain highly reliant on imported parts for key semiconductor equipment, with even mature processes not completely free of US sanctions, according to industry experts attending a chip-manufacturing tool event in the country.
Representatives from more than 600 Chinese semiconductor equipment companies including Naura Technology Group, Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment, and US sanctions-hit Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (SMEE) were in attendance at the three-day China Semiconductor Equipment Annual Conference 2023, which kicked off on Wednesday in Wuxi, eastern Jiangsu province.
Despite wide support for China’s semiconductor self-sufficiency drive, industry professionals said bottlenecks in the country’s chip equipment sector extend far beyond closely-watched lithography systems and include etching, robotic arms, valves, high-end tubes, materials, and certain equipment for making third-generation semiconductors, such as silicon carbide.
“We have huge gaps with foreign companies in the semiconductor industry and we are facing enormous challenges in technology, key parts and talent,” said Jacky Lin, founder and CEO of Honghu Suzhou Semiconductor Technology, a supplier of wafer transport equipment, during a panel discussion at the event on Wednesday.
Lin, a former Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp veteran who left to start Honghu Semiconductor in 2011, said that more than 80 per cent of wafer transport systems used in domestic fabs have been supplied by American and Japanese companies such as Brooks Automation and Rorze Corporation.
