The Chinese state-owned company that triggered a sharp plunge in global chip stocks with news that it had begun manufacturing immersion deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography equipment has been revealed to be an obscure Shanghai-based firm called Aishengna.
On the 28th, Reuters reported, citing sources, that the company drawing attention for beginning to manufacture immersion DUV lithography equipment is China's state-owned Shanghai Aishengna Electronic Technology Group.
Aishengna is a veiled company that does not even have an official website, founded in August 2023. According to registration documents, its only shareholders are two state-owned enterprises: Shanghai Electric Holdings and Shanghai International Trust.
Earlier, on the 27th, tech media outlet The Information reported, citing sources, that a China-backed company had begun producing DUV lithography equipment. It aims to produce five units this year and 20 units next year, and the equipment is scheduled to be supplied within this year to major Chinese semiconductor companies including SMIC, Hua Hong Semiconductor, and CXMT.
The industry views Aishengna as a 'consortium' that has gathered key lithography equipment talent in one place. In fact, the company is known to have built its production system by recruiting development personnel from lithography equipment firms including Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (SMEE) and Yuliangsheng Technology. Yuliangsheng began testing a DUV prototype last year and is an affiliate of SiCarrier, an equipment maker backed by Huawei. According to hiring records, Aishengna and Yuliangsheng share the same address in Shanghai.
Since 2022, the United States has regulated ASML's export of state-of-the-art extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment to China. Even among the simpler DUV lithography equipment compared to EUV, the U.S. banned the export of high-spec products. Experts assessed that if the news of China's DUV lithography equipment production is true, it means the U.S. technology blockade policy has effectively failed.
Pu Fangjian, an associate professor of finance at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business at Singapore Management University, told Lianhe Zaobao, "If this news is true, China has established an important milestone in overcoming the U.S. technology blockade," adding that "domestic DUV production was ultimately only a question of when it would succeed." Zhang Fan, co-founder of Singapore consulting firm Advantage Insights, also argued, "Over the eight to nine years the U.S.-China tech war has continued, China has made significant progress in rebuilding its semiconductor equipment system," and "The U.S. technology blockade against China has effectively failed, and just as the Berlin Wall fell, that wall must now be torn down."
However, the immediate commercial impact is assessed to be limited. Aishengna's DUV equipment still requires additional testing, and there is a large performance gap compared to ASML products. Production volume is also targeted at a maximum of 20 units next year, a level difficult to compare with ASML's several hundred units annually. In a report on the 28th, JP Morgan also pointed out, "Producing a small quantity of DUV equipment and building a mass-production system are entirely different matters," noting that "at the mass-production stage, yield, overlay precision, throughput, and the reliability to stably process thousands of wafers are key."
