China's self-developed DUV lithography machine enters mass production, with Yangtze Memory Technologies potentially being one of the first adopters

BlockBeats News, July 27th, according to sources familiar with the matter cited by The Information, a Chinese state-backed enterprise has begun mass production of domestically developed DUV (Deep Ultraviolet) lithography manufacturing equipment, marking a significant advancement in China's semiconductor industry's efforts towards domestic substitution.

It is reported that the enterprise plans to produce about 5 DUV lithography machines by 2026 and scale up to about 20 machines by 2027. Although there is still a gap in capacity compared to the Dutch lithography giant ASML (which delivered 131 sets of immersion DUV lithography systems last year), the domestic production of DUV equipment indicates a further step towards self-sufficiency and controllability in China's chip manufacturing supply chain.

Sources said that these domestically produced DUV lithography machines are planned to be delivered to major Chinese chip manufacturers, including SMIC, Huahong Semiconductor, and storage chip manufacturer ChangXin Memory.

Among them, ChangXin Memory, as a representative enterprise of China's DRAM industry, is expected to become a key adopter of domestically produced advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment. If domestically produced DUV equipment can achieve stable operation on ChangXin Memory and other manufacturers' production lines, it will further reduce China's storage chip industry's reliance on overseas critical equipment.