In the semiconductor war that the US and China are waging, companies that specialize in the manufacture of photolithography equipment, such as ASML, tend to attract attention; those that design the chips, such as NVIDIA or AMD; and the companies that produce them, such as TSMC or Samsung. However, in this complex network there are other much less known companies that also play an essential role in the integrated circuit industry. One of them is the Japanese company JSR Corporation.
This entity is one of the industrial strongholds of Japan. And it is because it supplies its photoresist liquids to most of the semiconductor manufacturers that produce cutting-edge chips, helping to sustain Japan’s leadership in a very important area that usually goes unnoticed: that of the manufacture of advanced materials to produce integrated circuits. For China, having its own advanced photoresist liquids on its path to total independence of its chip industry is crucial, which is why its plan involves breaking Japan’s monopoly in no more than five years.
China prepares to intimidate Japan
The photolithography equipment designed and produced by ASML is responsible, very roughly, for transferring the geometric pattern described by the mask with great precision to the surface of the silicon wafer. In this area we can observe the pattern as the “drawing” that delimits the distribution of the transistors, the connections and the other elements that make up an integrated circuit.
Before transferring the geometric pattern to the wafer, it is necessary to pour a liquid capable of absorbing light and preserving the pattern on it.
However, before reaching this very important step, it is necessary to subject the wafers to a process known as deposition. It usually involves equipment manufactured by Tokyo Electron or Applied Materials. Its purpose is prepare silicon wafers for the transfer of the geometric pattern by depositing a very thin layer of material on them. Depending on the type of chip being manufactured, it will be necessary to use one material or another.
One of the most used deposition techniques is known as oxidation, and consists of taking advantage of the ability of silicon to form a very thin layer of oxide when reacting with water. Its purpose is to protect the transistors and other chip components from external contamination. However, before transferring the geometric pattern to the wafer using lithography equipment, it is necessary to pour a liquid capable of absorbing light and preserving the pattern on it. This is the function of the photoresist fluid.
During the last two decades, all companies specialized in the production of photoresist materials have been Japanese. In fact, Japan has since had a monopoly on this market, which is currently led by JSR Corporation. For the US, one of its main allies should lead this market not a problembut the possibility of China developing the capacity to produce its own advanced photoresist materials on its path to cutting-edge chip manufacturing is an issue.
The Chinese government knows that photoresist production is a critical bottleneck, which is why its latest five-year plan has set out to resolve it. Xuzhou B&C Chemical, which is one of China’s leading photoresist manufacturers, anticipates that in at most five years it will have the capacity to produce advanced KrF photoresists on a large scale (Krypton Fluoride) and ArF (Argon Fluoride). Precisely this last material is commonly used in nodes equipped with deep ultraviolet (UVP) lithography equipment. However, the great challenge facing China is the development of photoresists suitable for the production of integrated circuits in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) nodes. We will see what achievements it achieves over the next five years.
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