Semiconductor parts

The semiconductor parts industry usually has characteristics such as high technology intensity, interdisciplinary integration, small and dispersed market share, but it plays a crucial role in the value chain. Generally speaking, equipment components account for about 70% of the total equipment expenditure. Taking etching machines as an example, the ten main key components account for 85% of the total equipment cost. It is the key support for the survival and development of the semiconductor industry, and its level directly determines the basic level of innovation in China's semiconductor industry.
a. Technology intensive, requiring high precision and reliability.
Compared to basic components in other industries, semiconductor components have the characteristics of high precision, small batch size, multiple varieties, special dimensions, complex processes, and extremely demanding requirements due to their intensive cutting-edge technology for precision semiconductor manufacturing. Due to the particularity of semiconductor components, enterprises often need to consider composite functional requirements such as strength, strain, corrosion resistance, electronic properties, electromagnetic properties, and material purity in production.
The same component, if used in traditional industry, is feasible, but in the semiconductor industry, the requirements for key components in terms of raw material purity, consistency of raw material batches, quality stability, machining accuracy control, edge chamfering and deburring, surface roughness control, special surface treatment, clean cleaning, vacuum dust-free packaging, delivery cycle, etc. are higher, resulting in extremely high technical barriers.
For example, as the linewidth of semiconductor processing becomes smaller and smaller, the photolithography process is extremely strict in controlling extremely small pollutants, not only strictly controlling the particles, but also strictly controlling the metal ion precipitation of filtered products. This poses extremely high requirements for the production and manufacturing of semiconductor filter components. At present, the precision requirement for semiconductor grade filters is to reach 1 nanometer or even below, while in other industries, the precision is required to be at the micrometer level.
At the same time, semiconductor filters also need to ensure consistency, chemical and heat resistance, strong resistance to detachment, etc., in order to achieve the high requirements of repeatability, high performance, consistent quality, and ultra pure product cleanliness required in semiconductor manufacturing.
b. The interdisciplinary integration requires high demands for versatile technical talents.
There are various types of semiconductor components with a wide coverage and a long industrial chain. Their research and development, design, manufacturing, and application involve interdisciplinary and interdisciplinary integration of materials, machinery, physics, electronics, precision instruments, etc. Therefore, there is a great demand for composite talents.
Taking the electrostatic suction cups used for fixing wafers in semiconductor manufacturing as an example, they themselves are made of aluminum oxide ceramics or aluminum nitride ceramics as the main materials, but other conductive substances need to be added to ensure that their overall electrical resistivity meets functional requirements. This requires a good understanding of the thermal conductivity, wear resistance, and hardness indicators of ceramic materials in order to obtain basic raw materials that meet the technical specifications of semiconductor manufacturing; Secondly, the internal organic processing structure of ceramics requires high precision, and the combination of the ceramic layer and the metal base must meet the requirements of uniformity and high strength. Therefore, for the structural design and processing of electrostatic suction cups, skills and knowledge in precision machining are required; The surface treatment of electrostatic suction cups requires a coating of about 0.01 microns, as well as high temperature resistance, wear resistance, and a service life of more than three years. Therefore, the requirements for mastering and applying surface treatment technology are also relatively high. It can be seen that composite and cross disciplinary technical talents are the fundamental guarantee for the semiconductor component industry.
c. The fragmentation feature is obvious, and international leading enterprises mainly adopt cross industry and multi product line development and merger and acquisition strategies.
Compared to the semiconductor equipment market, the semiconductor component market is more segmented, with obvious fragmentation characteristics. The market space for a single product is small, and at the same time, the technological threshold is high, so there are few pure semiconductor component companies.