Chinese technology companies such as ZTE and Huawei have been sanctioned by the United States one after another, making China realize that only by possessing independent intellectual property rights can it be completely free from the fate of being "stuck". Therefore, while the United States has imposed layers of bans on Huawei, all sides of China's semiconductor industry are also increasing R&D investment. The Chinese Academy of Sciences has directly announced that it will fully deploy the manufacturing of high-end equipment such as lithography machines.
The importance of the lithography machine to the chip manufacturing process is well known, but in the chip manufacturing process, not only the lithography machine is important, but also a core material-photoresist.
Photoresist is mainly used in the processing and production of micro-pattern circuits. It is a key material for processing technology and is also called the "blood" of semiconductors. Judging from this title, it can be realized that the status of photoresist is not lost to the lithography machine.
But whether it is lithography machine or photoresist, the entire industry is currently in an oligopoly pattern, and the right to speak is in the hands of Japanese, European and American companies.
Data show that the top five photoresist manufacturers in the world currently account for 87% of the market share, while the domestic photoresist market in China is less than 5%. This has led to China's need to import a large amount of photoresist. In 2017, China's demand for photoresist accounted for 32% of the US$1.205 billion global photoresist sales.
In order to break the monopoly, China strongly supports national enterprises to independently develop photoresists. Affected by this entrepreneurial wave, JSND Optoelectronic Materials Technology Group, established in 1990, began to develop photoresist materials in 2016. Thanks to nearly 20% of the annual R&D investment, JSND undertook the R&D and industrialization project of China's ArF (193nm) photoresist material in 2017.
ArF (193nm) photoresist is still the mainstream in the market before the 7nm EUV process is fully mature. If it can successfully conquer ArF photoresist, JSND will become a pioneer in breaking the overseas monopoly.
In 2019, Nanda Optoelectronics completed the installation of a 193nm photoresist production line, and has developed photoresist products for customer evaluation.
On October 26, JSND revealed that the R&D and industrialization project of 193nm photoresist materials undertaken by the company will be accepted by the national 02 special expert group at the end of 2020 or early 2021.