Japanese companies monopolize the EUV photoresist supply market

Currently, only two chip manufacturers have mastered semiconductor lithography using EUV extreme ultraviolet radiation lithography, but there is no doubt that this is the future of lithography. As with any future, it presents an opportunity for some lithographic materials market pioneers to establish themselves in new markets. In particular, the technology used in EUV lithography is currently produced by two Japanese companies, and one of them is the well-known Fujifilm.

Fujifilm Holdings and Sumitomo Chemical will start supplying lithographic materials for the next generation of chips in 2021, which could help reduce the size of chips in smartphones and other devices and make them more energy efficient. This material is mainly used as a supply of photoresist and plays a major role in the etching of silicon crystals.

Japanese companies have already grabbed the photoresist supply. For example, two Japanese companies, JSR and Shin-etsu Chemical, mainly supply photoresist used to control EUV lithography machines, which account for 90% of the lithography machine market. This virtual monopoly even allows Japan to limit South Korea with supplies of the material, which already happened in the chip market a year ago. Luckily, everything worked out.

So Fujifilm and Sumitomo Chemical offering photoresist for EUV lithography will further alleviate the situation, although they are also Japanese companies.

Fujifilm is investing 4.5 billion yen ($42.6 million) to equip a manufacturing plant in Shizuoka prefecture, southwest of Tokyo, to start mass production of photoresist next year. According to company representatives, its photoresist leaves a minimal amount of residual material on the silicon, greatly reducing the likelihood of chip defects.

Sumitomo Chemical will complete all photoresist capacity (from design to production) at the Osaka plant by early fiscal 2022. However, as a supplier of 193nm scanner photoresist, it has signed a contract with a well-known manufacturer in advance for future products, possibly for TSMC.

In the future, the issue of photoresist production for 3nm technology processes will become important because modern photoresist are not suitable for use for many reasons. EUV technology requires the use of unique photoresist, and the smaller the process technology, the higher the requirements for photoresist.

As of October 2020: In response to the rising demand for 5G and data center semiconductors, Japan's Shin-Etsu Chemical Industry (Shin-Etsu Chemical) said it will build a new plant in Taiwan to increase the production capacity of semiconductor materials "photoresist" by 5%, and due to the increase in orders from TSMC, Shin-etsu Chemical will also start to use the Taiwan plant to produce "extreme ultraviolet light (EUV)" photoresist.

Shin-etsu Chemical plans to build new photoresist plants in Yunlin County, Taiwan, and Zhijiangjin, Japan, and is expected to activate production around February 2021 and February 2022, respectively, thereby increasing production capacity by 50% in Taiwan and 20% in Japan, with an estimated total investment of about 30 billion yen. According to the report, Shin-etsu Chemical will also start using the Taiwan plant to produce photoresists used in advanced semiconductor production technology "extreme ultraviolet light (EUV)." Shin-etsu Chemical currently produces EUV photoresists only at its plant in Japan, but due to increasing orders from customers such as TSMC, it will expand its supply network to produce EUV photoresists at its plant in Taiwan.

According to the Japanese market research agency Fujifilm Economy pointed out that the global photoresist market size is estimated to be about 250 billion yen in 2024, which will increase by 60% from 2019. In the global photoresist market, Japanese manufacturers control about 80% of the market share, of which Shin-etsu Chemical market share of 2-3. Fujifilm (Fujifilm) and Sumitomo Chemical (Sumitomo Chemical) have also announced that they will enter the EUV photoresist market.

Fountyl Technologies PTE Ltd. with microporous vacuum chuck can be used with Japanese, German, Israeli, American and domestic equipment, with very superior product performance and good one-to-one service.