Development overview and trends, competitive landscape, and market capacity of major players in the semiconductor cleaning equipment industry

1. Overview and Trends of the Development of Semiconductor Cleaning Equipment Industry
During the semiconductor manufacturing process, it is inevitable to produce pollutants such as particles, organic matter, natural oxide layers, and metal impurities. A cleaning machine refers to a process equipment that performs non-destructive cleaning on the wafer surface to remove impurities and obtain the desired clean surface, preparing good conditions for the next step of the process. Cleaning machines are widely used in various stages of integrated circuit manufacturing, including pre/post film cleaning, plasma etching cleaning, ion implantation cleaning, chemical mechanical polishing cleaning, and metal deposition cleaning. Cleaning technology is one of the important factors affecting chip yield. With the continuous improvement of semiconductor manufacturing technology, chip size is constantly shrinking, sensitivity to impurities is increasing, and cleaning steps are also constantly increasing. The cleaning process for 90nm chips is about 90 steps, while the cleaning process for 20nm chips has reached 215 steps. Currently, cleaning steps account for about one-third of all steps in the entire semiconductor process, and almost all manufacturing processes require cleaning before and after, bringing broad growth space for cleaning equipment.
According to different cleaning media, semiconductor cleaning technology can be divided into two types: wet cleaning and dry cleaning. At present, wet cleaning is the mainstream cleaning technology, accounting for more than 90% of the total cleaning steps. Wet cleaning is a non-destructive cleaning process that uses deionized water, cleaning agents, etc. to remove impurities from the wafer surface during the manufacturing process, based on different process requirements. Dry cleaning refers to the use of gaseous hydrofluoric acid to etch irregularly distributed structured silicon dioxide layers on wafers without the use of chemical solvents. Although it has the advantage of high selectivity for different thin films, the pollutants that can be cleaned are relatively single. Currently, it is mainly applied in logic products and storage products with technical nodes of 28nm and below. According to different cleaning methods, wet cleaning includes six methods: solution immersion, mechanical brush cleaning, two fluid cleaning, ultrasonic cleaning, megasonic cleaning, and batch rotary spray cleaning. Dry cleaning includes three methods: plasma cleaning, gas phase cleaning, and beam cleaning.
At present, the mainstream wet cleaning equipment mainly includes single piece cleaning equipment, trough cleaning equipment, combination cleaning equipment, and batch rotary spray cleaning equipment, among which single piece cleaning equipment has the highest market share. The mainstream cleaning equipment under the wet cleaning process route has a distinction in advanced levels, mainly reflected in standards such as washable particle size, metal contamination, corrosion uniformity, and drying technology.
Drawing: Puhua Youce
2. Competitive landscape of semiconductor cleaning equipment industry
The top five global manufacturers are Applied Materials, ASML, Tokyo Electronics, Panlin Technology, and KeTian Semiconductor, from the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands. With a complete industrial chain and rich accumulation of technology patents, developed countries such as the United States, Japan, and Europe have maintained comprehensive leadership in the semiconductor field for a long time.
The market concentration of semiconductor cleaning equipment is very high, with overseas enterprises occupying a dominant position. The global semiconductor cleaning equipment is mainly dominated by companies such as DNS from Japan, Tokyo Electronics, Panlin Technology, and SEMES from South Korea. The total proportion of cleaning equipment from these companies exceeds 90% of the global market, indicating a high degree of industry concentration.
Thanks to industrial transfer and national policy support, the semiconductor equipment industry in Chinese Mainland has grown in an all-round way. Through independent research and development, domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers have realized the localization of equipment replacement in semiconductor etching, deposition, cleaning and other aspects, and entered the mass production stage.
With the improvement of core technology and process capabilities of domestic enterprises, as well as continuous progress in customer certification, etching and cleaning equipment is expected to become a track that significantly benefits the development of domestic market demand in the future, and become a pioneer in domestic substitution in the semiconductor equipment industry. The top five manufacturers of semiconductor equipment sales in Chinese Mainland are North Huachuang, Zhongwei Company, Shengmei Shanghai, Changchuan Technology, and Xinyichang. Cleaning equipment manufacturers mainly include Shengmei Shanghai, North Huachuang, Xinyuan Micro, Zhichun Technology, and Tiniu Technology, with a high degree of industrial concentration.