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Good news! According to the latest information from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the specialized glass bottles for photoresist used in China's semiconductor production lines have already been put into use, with good feedback.

Now it's interesting. Not only is the photoresist itself gradually replacing imports, but now even the bottles that hold the photoresist are no longer something we want the Japanese to profit from.

You shouldn't underestimate this bottle, thinking it's just a regular glass container for liquids. If you think that, you're being naive.

Photoresist is very sensitive. It can't withstand air, water, or light, making it a "glass heart" by nature. Therefore, the bottle must be a "sealing king," capable of blocking out all moisture and oxygen, without allowing even the slightest leakage.

Moreover, the material of the bottle must be compatible with the photoresist, not reacting chemically with it, nor absorbing its key components. It also needs to be as inert as gold, not releasing any impurities, otherwise it would contaminate the photoresist, rendering the subsequent chip manufacturing useless.

More importantly, the bottle must be extremely clean.

Chips are etched at the nanometer scale. Not only dust, but even a microscopic particle invisible to the naked eye falling into it could be like a meteor hitting a football field, causing the entire chip to be scrapped. Therefore, the workshop producing this bottle must be far cleaner than an operating room, with all production and cleaning done in a dust-free environment.

In addition, the design of the bottle's mouth is also high-tech. The amount of photoresist used is small, but the requirements are extremely high. You can't just pour it like pouring soy sauce. The internal structure and outlet of the bottle must be precisely controlled to ensure that the liquid flows smoothly, evenly, and without bubbles, without splashing or leaving any residue.

High-end bottles even come with precision valves and distribution systems, like having a miniature pump inside. This is all technical work.

So, in short, the photoresist bottle is by no means an ordinary "bottle." It's a highly engineered "ultra-pure container" that integrates top-tier materials science, precision manufacturing, chemical compatibility, and clean technology. Why didn't we make it before? Was it really impossible? Not necessarily.

There's also a very practical issue: the market is too small. If you add up all the photoresist used in the world for semiconductors, display panels, and PCB circuit boards, the total global market size is around $10 billion. Think about it, how big could the market for the bottles that hold it be? It might be so small that it's not worth it for a major company to set up a top-tier production line specifically for it.

This situation sounds familiar, doesn't it? It's similar to the case of the ballpoint pen tip steel. People used to believe that the small steel balls were only made by Japan and Switzerland, and they were exaggerated to be almost magical. We don't deny that the pen tip steel is indeed a special type of steel, with a high technical threshold. Regular steel mills really couldn't produce it.

But the problem is, China's annual steel production is over 1.1 billion tons, and steel mills receive orders in units of thousands of tons. However, the global annual demand for pen tip steel is only around 1,000 tons. This amount is too small for steel mills to justify modifying their production lines and halting R&D, which would be a waste of effort.

However, the rumor spread so widely that it was said that China couldn't even produce a single pen tip steel. Tai Steel was forced to use the smallest furnace and set up the smallest production line, and the result was that it produced enough pen tip steel for the entire world for ten years, directly cutting the global price of pen tip steel by 50-60%, forcing Japanese and Swiss manufacturers to nearly go bankrupt.

Now, the situation with the photoresist bottles is somewhat similar. Previously, people may have thought the market was too small and the technology too high, and the cost-benefit ratio needed careful consideration. But now, the situation has changed. Now that Japan keeps provoking us and crossing our red lines, we won't be polite anymore.

Since you're making money from Chinese people and then provoking us, don't blame me for not letting you make a single penny. This is the confidence of Chinese manufacturing.

Original: toutiao.com/article/7594845594213777930/

Disclaimer: This article represents the personal views of the author.