China’s semiconductor equipment sector is reaching a new stage as the global chip industry moves deeper into the post-Moore era, AI computing demand keeps climbing, and U.S. export controls on China remain tight.
Over the past decade, domestic suppliers moved from research and development into volume production. The next few years will test something harder: whether Chinese equipment can enter advanced production lines, support advanced-node logic chips, meet the stacking needs of high-bandwidth memory, and close the remaining gaps in the weakest links of the supply chain.
That was the backdrop for the 14th Semiconductor Equipment, Materials and Core Components Exhibition, or CSEAC 2026, held from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2 at the Wuxi Taihu International Expo Center. The event offered a broad look at where China’s semiconductor equipment chain now stands, spanning process tools, metrology and inspection, advanced packaging equipment, and core components.
Process tools have scale, but harder categories are now in focus
Domestic process equipment has already made visible progress in the largest markets, including lithography, etch, and thin-film deposition. Platform players such as Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. China, or AMEC, and NAURA have emerged as leading names in their respective segments, with some product lines reaching the front ranks globally.
At CSEAC, AMEC announced a group of newly developed high-end microfabrication tools, including the Primo XD-RIE platform for ultra-high aspect ratio etching at 70:1 to 90:1, the Performo QuaStar PECVD series including Performo QuaStar ON and Performo QuaStar GE, the Prefima UnicoreAM atomic layer deposition molybdenum tool, the Preforma Uniflash integrated metal silicide system, and the PRISMO PDS8 mass-production HTCVD system for silicon carbide power devices.
The launch followed four product releases in March, marking a second concentrated rollout within six months. According to the report, the new lineup extends AMEC’s coverage across advanced logic processes, power semiconductor manufacturing, thin-film deposition, and precision etching, and fills out a broader process equipment portfolio for multiple scenarios across the chain. AMEC said it now has more than 8,800 reaction chambers in volume production across more than 170 customers and over 220 chip and LED production lines in China and overseas, and has established research and manufacturing bases in five regions.
Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment showed a KrF dry lithography system for front-end production, an I-line scanning projection lithography system, and related core subsystems. The I-line scanner uses a 365 nm light source and reaches 280 nm resolution. The KrF scanner uses a 248 nm light source and reaches 110 nm resolution. According to the report, cumulative output at customer sites using Shanghai Micro Electronics equipment has exceeded 10 million wafers.
But localization is no easy task once attention shifts away from the biggest categories. Smaller markets with much steeper technical barriers are becoming the next battleground, and ion implantation stands out as one of the clearest examples.
Earlier domestic participants included Zhongkexin and Kingstone, while more companies have entered the track in recent years. NAURA, often cited as a benchmark in platform development among Chinese equipment makers, has already built what the report describes as the most complete domestic product matrix across etch, thin-film deposition, cleaning, and thermal processing. At this year’s show, its lineup included a plasma immersion ion implanter and a medium-current ion implanter. JSG is also extending into front-end tools, with ion implantation among the products under development. Its silicon medium-current ion implanter is now undergoing downstream customer verification, according to the report.
SIRUI Intelligent, after upgrading and repositioning its ALD business, has also moved into ion implantation. At the exhibition it showed the SR11 HEI high-energy ion implanter series, SR11 HCI high-current ion implanter series, SRII MCI medium-current ion implanter, SRII H hydrogen ion implanter, and a silicon carbide ion implanter series. The company said current shipments are concentrated in high-energy and high-current systems, while its silicon carbide ion implanter has already entered validation.
Newer companies focused entirely on ion implantation are also appearing. Aion Semiconductor presented its Ai-250, Ai-300, Ai-80HC, and Ai-200HC.D series, forming what it described as a full-spectrum ion implantation portfolio covering medium-current, high-current, high-energy, and specialty tools for both silicon-based and silicon carbide process routes. Its high-temperature silicon carbide ion implanter has already entered volume shipment, the company said.
Aion Semiconductor estimated that overall localization of ion implanters in China remains below 15%. For high-current systems, the figure is below 10%, while high-energy machines are still largely absent. The report says the most advanced foreign ion implanters can no longer be exported to China, and even corresponding second-hand tools cannot be purchased. As a result, domestic fabs are limited to older models, which hurts yield and stability. More companies are entering the segment, but the number with mature products remains small. Most are still in early verification, and only a handful have reached mass shipment. Another constraint is financial: nearly all domestic ion implanter makers are still unprofitable and remain in a heavy R&D investment phase.
The reason this segment is so hard is not just its size. Etchers and deposition tools share a common technical base in plasma physics, vacuum chambers, and RF power, allowing companies to reuse experience across categories. Ion implanters do not fit that pattern. Their key technologies are ion optics, electromagnetic mass analysis, and high-voltage acceleration, making them closer to particle accelerators than to conventional semiconductor process tools. That sharply limits technology transfer from adjacent equipment lines.
Metrology and inspection are moving faster
A few years ago, localization of front-end metrology and inspection equipment in China was below 10%, making it one of the weakest parts of the semiconductor equipment chain. These systems do not directly make chips, but they determine whether a wafer passes or becomes scrap. At nanometer-scale nodes, even small defects, film thickness deviations, or loss of control in critical dimensions can wipe out an entire batch, so the trust threshold at fabs is exceptionally high.
Still, the exhibition showed clear momentum. In recent years, domestic metrology and inspection tools have gradually moved closer to international standards and, in some cases, into volume delivery.
eGenerate, described in the report as the first Chinese company to build a platform layout in metrology and inspection, has developed a broad product range that includes bright-field patterned wafer defect inspection, dark-field patterned wafer defect inspection, unpatterned wafer defect inspection, 3D topography metrology, dielectric thin-film metrology, overlay metrology, metal thin-film metrology, and critical dimension metrology. It has also launched OLED panel defect inspection and 3D curved glass metrology products for broader semiconductor and industrial inspection markets.
According to the company, these products now cover multiple top-tier domestic integrated circuit manufacturers, and equipment types already in mass production or under verification account for more than 70% of the total quality-control equipment market. Staff at the booth said cumulative deliveries across the full lineup are around 1,500 units, with mature experience in volume production and delivery. Product performance has passed long-term validation by leading wafer fabs. High-end bright-field and dark-field systems have achieved a high replacement ratio at four major wafer makers, and some new lines adopted eGenerate equipment directly without purchasing tools from KLA.
Yuwei Semiconductor showed product deployments across four fields: mask substrate manufacturing, photomask manufacturing, chip manufacturing, and advanced packaging. It said progress has been fastest in mask-related inspection equipment, where some systems have reached top overseas levels and can fully replace foreign products. The equipment has already entered leading domestic fabs, according to the report.
SDRA exhibited a portfolio of e-beam metrology and inspection tools, including CD-SEM, HV-SEM, EBI, and DR-SEM. Its EBI defect inspection system can be used for logic processes at 28 nm and above and 3D NAND with 200 or more layers, with a 100 nA inspection beam current and a deep-learning defect auto-classification algorithm. Its HV-SEM can be used for logic processes at 14 nm and below, 3D NAND with 200 or more layers, and advanced-node DRAM, with landing energy up to 45 keV. Its CD-SEM reaches 0.15 nm repeatability and 0.1 nm tool-to-tool matching.
Progress is also appearing in smaller and newer metrology niches that may not represent huge markets but matter a great deal.
Gaize Technology displayed the IR300 wafer epitaxial film thickness metrology system, the AP300 film thickness gauge, and the ID300 wafer internal stress inspection system. The IR300 uses Fourier-transform infrared, or FTIR, technology to calculate thickness by analyzing interference signals. According to the company, localization in this category started in 2023. Before that, China’s market was mainly supplied by overseas brands such as Onto and Semilab. Domestic large-diameter silicon wafer makers have now largely shifted to Gaize products, it said.
Weichong Semiconductor presented its ASPIRER second-harmonic wafer inspection series, BRAVERY thermal-wave metrology series, and CLARITY acoustic scanning microscope series. Its second-harmonic inspection tool uses laser excitation to detect electrical defects at interfaces and film layers, surface charge, lattice characteristics, and crystal quality. The approach can be used on unpatterned wafers after multiple process steps including film deposition, epitaxy, etch, diffusion, cleaning, and CMP.
The company said conventional bright-field, dark-field, and e-beam inspection can only observe wafer surfaces and cannot capture internal interface information, while no other mature substitute is currently available. During second-harmonic inspection, the temperature rise at the excitation point is only 2 to 3 degrees, which avoids extra damage to the wafer itself. Weichong added that standard optical inspection tracks such as film thickness, bright-field, and dark-field have already become highly crowded, so it chose not to enter them and instead introduced second-harmonic detection into semiconductor metrology and inspection.
The report argues that although domestic metrology equipment used to lag far behind overseas peers, the pace of progress has accelerated as downstream customers have opened up validation and companies are no longer working in isolation. The result is not only progress in major equipment categories, but also active deployment in niche and emerging tracks. Even so, industry participants said leading fabs still keep imported systems as benchmark tools when purchasing new equipment. Domestic products usually need match comparisons with equivalent overseas machines, and validation often depends on reproducing the inspection results of those foreign tools.
Packaging equipment has moved from supporting role to center stage
Packaging once occupied a much smaller role in the semiconductor chain, largely focused on wrapping finished chips and connecting them. In the AI era, that changed. In the post-Moore period, advanced packaging has become a key path for sustaining computing growth. Packaging now directly affects chip performance, power consumption, and cost.
Bonding equipment sits at the heart of that shift. By bonding target, the main categories are wafer-to-wafer, or W2W, and die-to-wafer, or D2W.
Qinghe Jingyuan, focused on wafer bonding tools, showed ultra-high-vacuum room-temperature bonding equipment, hydrophilic W2W hybrid bonding equipment, thermocompression anodic bonding equipment, and C2W/CWW hybrid bonding equipment. Its ultra-high-vacuum room-temperature system uses ion-beam bombardment in an ultra-high-vacuum environment to activate material surfaces and form strong chemical bonds without heating or annealing.
Piotech brought the Dione 300 wafer hybrid bonding system and the Pleione 300 HS die-to-wafer fusion bonding system. Dione 300 is a W2W hybrid bonding tool used for advanced 3D heterogeneous integration processes. Pleione 300 HS does not require a bonding medium or adhesive, can achieve direct bonding at room temperature, and allows known-good dies to be selected before bonding, which improves yield.
XinHui LianXin, another important player in hybrid bonding, displayed its CANOPUS series W2W hybrid bonding systems and SIRIUS series D2W hybrid bonding systems. The company said that, at present, only it and one other domestic vendor have shipped D2W equipment. It also showed related metrology tools. Staff said that because bonding equipment development requires repeated parameter verification, relying on external equipment makes it hard to identify the source of a problem. For that reason, the company developed its own supporting metrology and bond-strength testing tools.
Starry Sky Technology Equipment exhibited an integrated lithography and bonding solution for wafer-level large-chip manufacturing. Its ICB series D2D/D2W bonding equipment reaches post-bond accuracy of ±0.3 μm. Its iHC 3000 D2W hybrid bonding system reaches ±0.1 μm. Its IAB series W2W bonding equipment reaches ±2 μm.
Industry participants cited in the report said W2W processes are already mature, while the real challenge is D2W. The timeline laid out in the report reflects that divide. In 2008, W2W fusion bonding was first used in CMOS image sensor products, enabling top-bottom exchange of photodiodes and metal layers to reduce signal reflection and crosstalk. Sony introduced a three-layer stacked CIS in 2017. In 2018, YMTC’s 3D NAND and, in 2019, IMEC’s backside power delivery technology both put bonding processes into application. In 2022, wafer-level bonding for MicroLED moved into application. In 2023, Samsung incorporated hybrid bonding into its HBM4 roadmap, and in 2024 it introduced the vertically stacked VCT DRAM architecture.
On the supply side, however, D2W hybrid bonding equipment is still mainly dominated by Dutch company BESI. Globally, only TSMC is said to have mass-production capability for D2W processes. Chinese vendors have launched prototype tools, but almost all remain in the validation stage and lack mature products that have already landed in volume manufacturing.
The difficulty with D2W goes beyond the machine itself. First, the report says, China currently has no domestic mass-production customer for D2W processes, so downstream demand is not yet strong enough to define exact process parameters. Second, validation resources are scarce: leading fabs have limited R&D capacity and limited high-value wafer materials, leaving new entrants with few chances to secure enough line verification. Third, hybrid bonding is not a single-equipment problem. It must be combined with front-end capabilities such as lithography compensation, making it a cross-stage systems project. Overseas hybrid bonding vendors typically integrate strengths across suppliers rather than trying to complete the whole chain alone.
Core components are the next step in localization
Localization is also advancing in semiconductor core components.
As advanced nodes continue to evolve, high-end precision equipment requires stronger operational stability, nanometer-scale positioning accuracy, and tighter suppression of micro-vibration. Upgrading one component at a time is no longer enough to meet the compound demands of precision processes. In the past, many of these critical components were dominated by foreign suppliers.
At the exhibition, Glenro Precision launched two new air-floating active vibration isolation products, the SFE300B and SFL300A, and said it had taken an early step in domestic substitution. The company has also developed a high-precision motion control system. According to its introduction, the core performance of the lineup is broadly in line with products from ACS overseas and can directly replace them, with future work centered on iterative improvement of functional modules.
From isolated breakthroughs to ecosystem building
The overall picture from CSEAC 2026 is that China’s semiconductor equipment industry is shifting from individual breakthroughs toward broader ecosystem construction. As that ecosystem becomes more complete, localization is moving into deeper and more difficult waters. Segments that once had few or no domestic players are now attracting new entrants. A decade ago, the question was whether China had domestic etchers or cleaning tools at all. Today, the discussion has moved to whether a full-chain domestic equipment system can be built.
That does not make the next phase easier. Ion implantation remains a technical island. D2W bonding still lacks mass-production proof points. Metrology and inspection continue to face a high trust barrier. The report concludes that these problems cannot be solved through single-point breakthroughs alone. They require coordinated validation across the supply chain and long-term, high-intensity R&D spending.
This article was originally published by the WeChat account Semiconductor Industry Review (ID: ICViews) and written by Peng Cheng.