Photoresist, as a key material in the semiconductor manufacturing process, the "crown jewel" of electronic chemicals, uses photochemical reactions, through photolithography processes such as ** and development, to transfer the required fine patterns from the mask to the substrate to be processed.
The entire chip manufacturing process may require dozens of lithography, and the cost of the lithography process is about 30% of the entire chip manufacturing process, and the time consumption accounts for about 40%-50% of the entire process. Moreover, the precision of the lithography process determines the critical size of the integrated circuit, laying the foundation for device scaling, the higher the precision, the shorter the channel length obtained, and the lower the operating voltage realized. Therefore, photoresist is an important electronic chemical that is prone to "stuck".
According to the application field, it can be divided into semiconductor photoresist, PCB photoresist, LCD photoresist, etc. Among them, the semiconductor photoresist has the highest technical threshold.
At present, the photoresist market is mainly dominated by several major companies such as Tokyo Oika, DuPont, JSR, Sumitomo Chemical and Dongjim, especially in the field of semiconductor photoresist, which has a higher degree of monopoly.
On the one hand, the price increase of photoresist is due to the imbalance between supply and demand in the global semiconductor market. With the rapid development of technologies such as 5G and artificial intelligence, the demand for semiconductors continues to grow, while global production capacity is limited, resulting in a shortage of key materials such as photoresists. On the other hand, the cost of raw materials, production equipment, etc. also has an impact on photoresist. In the face of the trend of rising photoresist prices, domestic photoresist companies have ushered in development opportunities. With the country's attention and support for the semiconductor industry, domestic photoresist enterprises have received more financial and policy support, accelerating the pace of technology research and development and industrial upgrading. At the same time, the rise of domestic semiconductor companies has also driven the growth of demand for domestic photoresists, providing a broad market space for domestic photoresist companies.
In the context of the rising price of photoresist, the introduction of domestic photoresist has entered the fast lane. More and more domestic semiconductor companies have begun to try to use domestic photoresists to reduce production costs and improve product quality. At the same time, domestic photoresist enterprises have also made remarkable progress in technology research and development, quality control, etc., and gradually narrowed the gap with the international advanced level. However, the introduction of domestic photoresist still faces some challenges. On the one hand, the trust of domestic semiconductor companies in domestic photoresist needs to be improvedOn the other hand, domestic photoresist still needs to be continuously improved and improved in terms of technology and quality. Therefore, domestic photoresist enterprises need to strengthen technology research and development and quality control, improve product competitiveness, and win the trust and support of more customers. In short, the price increase of photoresist has brought development opportunities and challenges to domestic photoresist enterprises. In the future development, domestic photoresist enterprises need to strengthen technology research and development and quality control, improve product competitiveness, and promote the healthy development of the domestic semiconductor industry.