【Wen/Observer Group Wang Yi】According to a January 31 report by Nikkei Asia, in 2025, three Chinese companies will be among the top 20 global chip equipment manufacturers, showing significant progress compared to just one company before the U.S. export restrictions were implemented in 2022. U.S. export controls may force China's semiconductor industry to accelerate the complementation of supply chain shortcomings and promote the rapid rise of domestic equipment manufacturers.

The report analyzed semiconductor equipment sales data from the Japanese research institution Global Net and found that, in terms of sales, Beijing Semiconductor Equipment Group Co., Ltd. rose from eighth globally in 2022 to fifth in 2025, ranking behind ASML, a Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer, Applied Materials, an American semiconductor equipment manufacturer, Lam Research, and Tokyo Electron, a Japanese company.

Beijing Semiconductor Equipment Group's official website states that the company was established in 2001, with 20,000 employees and over 130 products covering semiconductor equipment, vacuum and lithium battery equipment, and precision components, providing solutions for the fields of semiconductors, new energy, and new materials.

Compared to 2022, the newly entered company ranked 13th is Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "SMIC"). The company was founded by engineers who previously worked at Lam Research and Applied Materials. Its core etching equipment is reported to have been used in the production of 5-nanometer chips, and it is not far from the world's most advanced level.

SMIC website

The company ranked 20th is Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (Group) Co., Ltd. (SMEE), mainly producing lithography equipment used to transfer circuit patterns onto wafers. Nikkei Asia pointed out that this is a key step in determining chip performance. Although its products are one generation behind the global leader ASML, SMEE enjoys a stable market demand as one of the few lithography equipment manufacturers in China.

If the scope is expanded to the top 30 companies, two more Chinese companies will be added — Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and Huahai Qingke Co., Ltd.

The report analyzes that China is accelerating the promotion of semiconductor industry self-reliance through national funds leading and local governments supporting investments, continuously increasing investment in equipment and materials, which has led to a rapid increase in the number of equipment manufacturers and the emergence of new entrants. The U.S. export restrictions have further accelerated this trend, forcing China to speed up the localization of chips and manufacturing equipment.

Hirotake Otsuki, a senior analyst at Japan's Techno Systems Research, said that currently, 20% to 30% of semiconductor equipment in China is made domestically, a significant increase from about 10% three years ago.

Industry insiders pointed out that advanced semiconductor manufacturing involves more than 1,000 processes, each requiring corresponding equipment. A senior executive of a professional trading company supplying components to Chinese manufacturers revealed that Chinese companies "can now cover all process links including deposition, etching, and cleaning."

Nikkei Asia stated that in the short term, Japanese, U.S., and European manufacturers will face more intense competition in the Chinese market. According to SEMI data, the sales of chip manufacturing equipment in China increased by 35% in 2024, reaching $49.5 billion, making it the largest market. In the long term, as China's supply chain continues to improve, the current technological leadership of Western and Japanese companies may also be challenged.

The impact has already begun to show. ASML released its fourth-quarter 2025 and full-year financial results on the 28th and adjusted its expectations for 2026. Reuters reported that China remained ASML's largest single market in 2025, accounting for 33% of sales. However, due to U.S. export restrictions, ASML expects China's share of sales to drop to 20% in 2026.

ASML CEO Christophe Foucault told Bloomberg last month that Western countries should moderately transfer technology to China to prevent it from developing competitiveness through self-research. According to him, the equipment exported by ASML to China is eight generations behind the latest high-numerical-aperture lithography technology, with a technical level equivalent to the products sold to Western customers in 2013 and 2014, creating a technical gap of more than ten years.

Facing the lithography technology bottleneck, Chinese companies are striving to overcome it to achieve self-sufficiency. The South China Morning Post mentioned last month that Chinese companies are working to break through extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines while also exploring ways to bypass restrictions using deep ultraviolet (DUV) technology. According to a patent submitted in 2022, Huawei once attempted to use older DUV lithography machines to achieve 2nm-level performance through the "self-aligned quadruple patterning" technique.

Last year, Nikkei Asia cited a U.S. expert who said that the continuous restrictions imposed by the U.S. on China reflect the naivety or ignorance of U.S. policymakers regarding China's chip equipment manufacturing capabilities. Many strong competitors have already emerged in China, and it may further increase investment in independent R&D of semiconductor equipment. Once Chinese semiconductor equipment manufacturers become competitive in the international market, it would be difficult to stop them.

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Original: toutiao.com/article/7601435937575043636/

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