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Chinese Semiconductor Equipment Makers Accelerate Localization Beyond Front-End Processes into Advanced Packaging

Major Chinese semiconductor equipment manufacturers are accelerating efforts to localize back-end processing equipment by leveraging technologies they have already developed for front-end wafer fabrication.

According to industry sources on Sept. 5, Chinese semiconductor equipment companies including NAURA Technology, Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. China (AMEC), and Hwatsing Technology are extending their existing expertise in etching, deposition, and chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) beyond front-end processes into equipment specifically designed for back-end applications such as hybrid bonding, dicing, and wafer thinning.

The move is seen as part of China’s broader push to expand semiconductor equipment self-sufficiency into advanced packaging amid U.S. export restrictions on chipmaking equipment. In particular, as the expansion of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and three-dimensional chip stacking increasingly blurs the boundary between front-end and back-end processes, there is greater scope for existing front-end technologies to be adapted for packaging applications.

NAURA, China’s largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer, recently said in its first-half earnings report that it had launched two types of 12-inch hybrid bonding systems: wafer-to-wafer (WTW) and die-to-wafer (DTW). The DTW system has already entered the customer application stage.

Hybrid bonding is a precision bonding technology used to densely stack multiple chips, such as in HBM and chiplet architectures.

This year, NAURA also introduced equipment for through-silicon via (TSV) electroplating and panel-level packaging (PLP) processes. Its advanced-packaging portfolio now spans equipment that fills microscopic TSV holes with copper to enable vertical chip interconnection, as well as systems used for redistribution-layer formation and surface treatment on large panels.

AMEC, China’s leading etching equipment supplier, is also expanding beyond its existing TSV etching business into dicing and deposition. Its plasma dicing equipment, which separates wafers into individual dies, has progressed to the customer qualification stage at major Chinese customers this year.

In the first half of the year, AMEC also began developing deposition equipment for under-bump metallization (UBM), which forms the metal layer beneath chip interconnect bumps.

AMEC has set a target of addressing more than 70% of the equipment categories required for advanced packaging over the next five years through a combination of in-house R&D and mergers and acquisitions. The company plans to broaden its packaging equipment portfolio from its traditional focus on TSV etching into dicing and deposition.

Hwatsing Technology, whose core business is CMP equipment, is similarly expanding the application of its existing technologies into advanced packaging. After supplying certain advanced CMP tools to HBM production lines at major Chinese memory manufacturers, the company has added dedicated packaging equipment for wafer thinning and edge processing. In the first half of this year, it shipped its first new 12-inch wafer thinning system designed for advanced memory applications.

Oh Jong-hyuk, a researcher at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP), said, “China faces constraints in advancing leading-edge semiconductor processes due to U.S. equipment export controls, and is therefore pursuing advanced packaging as a way to compensate for the performance limitations of individual chips. As architectures that connect multiple chips to increase aggregate computing power become more important, the scope of equipment localization is also expanding into back-end processes.”

However, many of the newly announced systems from Chinese vendors are still undergoing customer qualification or remain in the early stages of commercialization. Their ability to demonstrate competitive yields, equipment uptime, stability, and productivity in actual high-volume manufacturing lines will be a key factor determining whether they can achieve broader market adoption.