The micro-network news (text / Mao Mao), in the semiconductor industry, the semiconductor equipment industry in the most upstream of the industrial chain plays a pivotal role. In the semiconductor equipment market, in terms of process, wafer manufacturing equipment purchases account for approximately 80% of the total, test equipment accounted for about 9%, packaging equipment accounted for about 7%, other equipment accounted for about 4%. It can be seen that wafer fabrication equipment is the core part of the entire semiconductor equipment industry.
According to the SEMI report, global semiconductor manufacturing equipment revenue in the first quarter of 2018 was 17 billion US dollars, up 30% year-on-year, reaching a record high. According to the collection of micro-networks, the wafer manufacturing equipment contains eight major equipments, namely etching. Equipment, film equipment, lithography equipment, process control, test equipment, ion implantation, cleaning equipment, chemical mechanical polishing.
Among them, cleaning equipment is an important part of the semiconductor industry chain, used to clean raw materials and impurities that may exist in semi-finished products in each step, to avoid impurities affecting the quality of finished products and downstream products. Currently, cleaning equipment in wafer manufacturing equipment The procurement cost is about 5%, which is widely used in the production of monocrystalline silicon wafers, lithography, etching, deposition and other key processes.
Global semiconductor cleaning equipment is oligopolistic
According to public information, the global cleaning equipment market will be 2.7 billion US dollars in 2017, and with the rise of process nodes, the demand for cleaning equipment will continue to increase. It is expected to reach 3.5-400 million US dollars in 2020 and the average annual compound growth rate in 2015-2020. At 6.8%. At the same time, SEMI expects that China's chip manufacturing companies are expected to exceed 60 billion yuan in demand for cleaning equipment by 2020.
According to statistics, the number of cleaning processes accounts for one-third of the entire chip manufacturing process, which is an important part of chip manufacturing. For example, assuming a monthly production capacity of 100,000 DRAM production lines, the yield is reduced by 1%. , will lead to a loss of 30 to 50 million US dollars a year. Therefore, in order to improve the yield, enterprises will inevitably adopt more cleaning times.
From a technical point of view, common cleaning techniques include wet cleaning and dry cleaning. Among them, wet cleaning is still the mainstream in the industry, accounting for more than 90% of the cleaning steps. At the same time, the difference in process technology and application conditions makes At present, there are obvious differences in cleaning equipment on the market. Currently, the most important cleaning equipment on the market is single wafer cleaning equipment, automatic cleaning station and scrubber.
Throughout the global semiconductor equipment market, the entire industry presents a highly monopolistic, strong and strong situation, and the specific semiconductor cleaning equipment is the same. Currently, in the entire cleaning equipment market, Japanese companies dominate, about 60% of the market The share is occupied by Japan Screen, 30% of the market share is occupied by Japan Tokyo Electron (Tokyo Electronics), other manufacturers include South Korea SEMES (fine beauty), the United States Lam Research (Pan Lin) and so on.
On the other hand, at present, in the eight major wafer manufacturing equipments, there are domestic equipment enterprises, and within the scope of a single process equipment, few domestic equipment companies compete with each other. Domestic brands each focus on one or two or three. The localization of the core process equipment. In terms of cleaning equipment, there are mainly Shengmei Semiconductor, North Huachuang and Zhichun Technology have layout, and there is a big difference between the products of the three.
Shengmei Semiconductor is the strongest in domestic cleaning equipment
At present, Shengmei Semiconductor, North Huachuang and Zhichun Technology are responsible for the localization of cleaning equipment. Among them, Shengmei Semiconductor has the strongest technical strength, and can achieve domestic substitution in a larger part of the cleaning process.
Shengmei Semiconductor was founded in 1998 and has been in existence for 20 years since its establishment. It was successfully listed on NASDAQ in the United States last year. For a long time, Shengmei Semiconductor has been focusing on single-chip cleaning equipment and created megasonic cleaning in 2009. SAPS) technology, at this time Hynix is being plagued by the cleaning problem of small particles. Taking this opportunity, Shengmei's first 12-inch 45nm single-chip cleaning equipment entered the Hynix Wuxi production line test, and Shengmei also started with Hynix. Expand long-term cooperation.
According to the report of BOCI Securities, the company's operating income in 2015-2017 was 86%, 24% and 18.1% respectively from Hynix. As of 2017, Shengmei sold more than 30 cleaning equipment, including Hynix. More than 20 units. In addition to Hynix, Shengmei also entered the Yangtze River Storage, SMIC, Shanghai Huali, Changdian Technology and other five customers.
From the technical strength point of view, Shengmei Semiconductor's technical strength has reached 14nm, and has begun to compete with Deanshi, Tokyo Electronics, Panlin and other companies. It is worth mentioning that in 2016, Shengmei once again created a power supply. Bubble shock megasonic cleaning (TEBO) technology. Currently SAPS technology has 22 invention patents, and TEBO technology applies for 8 PCT patents.
The layout of North Huachuang and Zhichun Technology in the field of cleaning equipment
Unlike Shengmei Semiconductor's main single-chip cleaning equipment, North Huachuang realized the localization of trough cleaning equipment through the acquisition of American Akrion. In August 2017, North Huachuang acquired Akrion for US$15 million. It is reported that Akrion is located. A company specializing in wafer cleaning equipment business in Pennsylvania, USA, mainly used in integrated circuit manufacturing, silicon wafer manufacturing, MEMS and advanced packaging. The company has many years of cleaning technology accumulation and extensive market and Customer base, cumulative online machine more than 1,000 units.
North Huachuang's self-developed 12-inch single-chip cleaning machine is mainly used in the pre-cleaning, regenerative cleaning, copper interconnection cleaning and aluminum pad cleaning processes in the integrated circuit chip process. After the acquisition of Akrion, the northern Huachuang cleaning The product line has been further supplemented. Up to now, North Huachuang has formed 8-12 inch batches and singles covering semiconductors in integrated circuits, advanced packaging, power devices, MEMS and semiconductor lighting in the field of cleaning equipment. Tablet cleaning machine products.
In addition to Shengmei Semiconductor and North Huachuang, Zhichun Technology also has a layout in semiconductor cleaning equipment, and it is also based on trough cleaning. To pure technology itself is to do ultra-pure gas and special chemical gas transportation, so we are doing wet method. The equipment has certain advantages. In 2015, through cooperation with international cleaning equipment manufacturers, Zhichun Technology started the development of wet process equipment. In 2017, it established a subsidiary to Micro Semiconductor as an independent semiconductor wet law division, dedicated to creating high-end wet methods. Equipment manufacturing development platform.
Up to now, the research and development of Zhiquan Technology in the above-mentioned fields has been fruitful. In 2017, the company has formed the tank wet cleaning equipment of Ultron B200 and Ultron B300 and the single-chip wet cleaning equipment series of Ultron S200 and Ultron S300. And has already obtained 6 batch orders.
Opportunities for domestic cleaning equipment manufacturers
According to SEMI data, in 2018, Fab's equipment procurement expenditure in China was close to 12 billion US dollars, up 67% year-on-year. It surpassed Taiwan and China to become the world's second largest semiconductor equipment market. By 2019, the purchase of semiconductor equipment in mainland China is expected to exceed South Korea ranks first in the world, reaching $18 billion, a year-on-year increase of 58%.
Undoubtedly, the huge increase in capital expenditure of mainland fabs will bring huge market opportunities for domestically produced equipment, and semiconductor cleaning equipment will also usher in good development prospects. In addition to market opportunities, domestic semiconductor cleaning equipment will also face Opportunities in advanced process technology.
As the process of the chip shrinks and the memory 2D changes to 3D, the production process becomes complicated, making cleaning the most repetitive step in the production of chips. In addition, the yield of wafer fabrication will decrease with the line width. One of the ways to increase the yield is to increase the cleaning process. In the 80-60nm process, the cleaning process is about 100 steps, and by the 20-10nm process, the cleaning process rises to more than 200 steps.
Although the strength of domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers is still very weak in the global semiconductor equipment market, the road to success cannot be achieved overnight. Perhaps it is a step by step to achieve partial breakthroughs in such areas as cleaning equipment. It is currently a domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturer and The best way for international giants to compete.