Amid the booming development of cutting-edge technologies such as AI, smart cars, and robots, the semiconductor industry is facing unprecedented opportunities and challenges. While the global semiconductor industry chain is undergoing tremendous changes, China's semiconductor industry has mixed feelings. On the one hand, there is a strong demand, but on the other hand, there are many restrictions on the acquisition of high-end semiconductor manufacturing equipment. China's semiconductor companies are moving forward with heavy burdens and overcoming difficulties, and many new forces have joined in to jointly promote the development of the industry. Before 2021, semiconductor processes and quantity detection equipment were basically dominated by foreign countries, especially the localization rate of quantity detection equipment was less than 3%, which became a key bottleneck restricting the development of domestic semiconductors. Today, Xinkailai announced that it has completed the development of 13 types of key quantity detection products and has begun mass production and application in major domestic semiconductor manufacturers of logic, storage and compounds. Semiconductor Industry Zongheng talked with Li Zhoujian, president of Xinkailai's quantity detection equipment product line, to learn more about the core products and future layout of this low-key semiconductor equipment company.

How important is mass testing equipment?

Semiconductor mass inspection equipment can be divided into two categories: inspection and metrology. Inspection is to find out various types of defects of wafers after different processes, such as particle contamination, surface scratches, open short circuits and other characteristic structural defects that have adverse effects on chip process performance; metrology refers to the quantitative characterization of the structural dimensions and material properties on the observed wafer circuit, such as the measurement of physical parameters such as film thickness, key dimensions, etching depth, and surface morphology. Mass inspection is the eye in chip research and development and mass production, and is crucial to process improvement in the research and development link, and yield improvement and control in mass production ramp-up. Among the entire front-end equipment, mass inspection equipment is one of the equipment categories with the lowest localization rate. Since domestic semiconductor manufacturing companies mainly relied on foreign manufacturers to provide high-end mass inspection equipment in the early days, after the availability of semiconductor equipment was gradually restricted, not only the equipment itself, but also operation and maintenance became key bottlenecks. Mass inspection equipment is extremely difficult to use and the price is also very high. A high-end bright field defect detection product costs millions to tens of millions of US dollars, and its value can be seen. Find electronics in easelinkelec.

Before 2021, the domestic high-end equipment field for mass testing was almost blank, including equipment and corresponding parts, materials and process foundations were all very weak. The joint research data of VLSI Research and QY Research showed that the CR5 index of the industry (the market concentration index representing the total market share of the top five companies in the industry) was as high as 82%. In the entire market, the top five equipment suppliers are all from Europe, the United States and Japan. There are two mountains firmly pressing on the field of domestic mass testing equipment. One is "zero" experience. The development of domestic semiconductor mass testing equipment lacks demand drive, has no application experience, no technical accumulation, and almost zero professional talents in the field. The other is core components. The domestic engineering basic capabilities and core technology reserves are insufficient, and key components have been monopolized by foreign manufacturers for a long time. It is under such circumstances that domestic semiconductor equipment companies including Xinkailai began to exert their strength.

Moving forward in silence

Since its inception, Xinkai has been targeting the high-end equipment needs of domestic semiconductor manufacturing companies. In 2022, it began to rapidly build a research and development team and organize industry resources. From customer needs to system design, from component development to whole machine integration, 3 years of concentrated research and development have yielded fruitful results. On March 26, Xinkai will release 13 categories of products covering optical inspection, optical measurement, PX measurement, power detection and other fields. The products can be divided into two categories: one is optical quantity detection products with higher technical difficulty, such as bright field defect detection BFI, dark field defect detection DFI, etc. The other is PX (physical and X-ray) and power detection products that were blank in China at the time but necessary for the production line, such as X-ray XPS, XRD, etc. Optical quantity detection products, including bright field defect detection BFI, dark field defect detection DFI, surface defect detection PC, blank mask defect detection MBI, overlay measurement DBO and IBO, have basically completed customer-side verification and will enter mass production in 2025. PX measurement products, including atomic force microscope measurement AFM, X-ray measurement XPS, XRD, and XRF, have all entered mass production and delivery. It is understood that Xinkailai's PX measurement products have reached the industry's advanced level in key performance indicators such as measurement accuracy, repeatability, and yield. At present, major semiconductor manufacturers in China's logic, storage, and compound industries have all been mass-produced. Power detection products, including CP (Chip Probing), KGD (Known Good Die), and FT (Final Test) testers, have also been developed and entered large-scale applications. Xinkailai's semiconductor mass detection equipment has three advantages: First, the product has a high starting point. Through forward design, performance indicators such as detection accuracy, sensitivity, and yield are benchmarked against the industry's advanced level. Second, master the underlying key technologies, and all core components have achieved breakthroughs to ensure supply security and leading performance. Third, the product portfolio is high and low, which can cover the needs of different process nodes. Judging from customer feedback and actual operating performance, Xinkailai's mass detection products can effectively solve the pain points faced by customers and meet production line needs. Taking the first measurement product XPS as an example, this product has been running stably for nearly 20,000 hours on the client side, and its key performance indicators have met the application requirements of advanced process customers.

Every step is difficult

The slow localization process and low localization rate of mass testing equipment are mainly due to the high technical difficulty and high trial and error cost of production lines. According to Yole's statistics, the number of fatal defects generated in the process will increase by 50% for each generation of process node reduction, and the final chip yield is the result of cumulative multiplication. Taking advanced technology as an example, only if the yield of each process is guaranteed to exceed 99.98%, the final yield can reach 70%~80%. Therefore, as the mass testing equipment responsible for the yield of the production line, its performance requirements are extremely high. Mass testing equipment requires high precision and high speed, and most of the breakthroughs in core technologies are challenges to the physical limits. The design simulation of the system and the performance of components are crucial to the final performance of the product; especially the core components are the key bottleneck of the localization of mass testing equipment. If you can't buy it, make it yourself. It is difficult to obtain core components, such as high-specification bright field lamps, cameras and other components that are simply not available; even if some components with limited performance are obtained, they will ultimately fail to meet the needs of the system. Xinkailai has determined the forward design and self-developed strategy of key components from the beginning, and proposed the concept of "source, path, probe, calculation, and platform" system architecture. It has carried out technical research around five key subsystems and components, and carried out joint research and development in terms of component specification definition, material selection, processing technology, and assembly technology through collaboration with domestic suppliers. Take the LSP light source of Xinkailai's bright field defect detection product BFI as an example. The LSP light source is a special light source developed based on plasma theory. Its brightness far exceeds that of the sun, providing BFI products with sufficient light energy to improve the detection rate and yield of the whole machine. In order to achieve high brightness, it is necessary to focus several kilowatts of pump laser to a very small point and stably excite and maintain the plasma. Not only is it necessary to carry out very precise optical design, thermal design, and forward design such as the internal and external flow field design of the bulb, but it is also necessary to break through the precision processing and assembly process, and finally achieve the function and performance indicators of the light source and realize mass production. Today, Xinkailai's mass detection equipment has achieved localization in core components, and every breakthrough was also regarded as an insurmountable mountain before 2021.

The road is long and difficult, but if you keep going you will reach your destination

Dickens said in A Tale of Two Cities, "It is the best of times, it is the worst of times." In the grand narrative of the current semiconductor industry, it is more appropriate to look at this sentence in reverse: "It is the worst of times, it is the best of times." This aptly outlines the complex situation in which Xinkailai is located. The disadvantage is that the domestic semiconductor industry started late, and there is still a certain gap with foreign semiconductors; the good thing is that the semiconductor equipment market is becoming more and more prosperous. Under the current international situation, China's semiconductor industry has great potential. In three years, Xinkai has completed the development of a full range of equipment, initially meeting the needs of semiconductor manufacturing companies such as logic and storage. By the end of 2024, most of the equipment has made breakthroughs and started verification and application. This brings new changes to the healthy development of China's semiconductor industry. Speaking of the future, Mr. Li said: "The first priority is to solve the problem of advanced process. Foreign process nodes have already taken a more advanced path. We will continue to work in this direction. This takes time, but we are confident." He smiled and continued, "The direction is clear, and the road is bumpy."

Source: Semiconductor Industry Overview

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