How have orders for dry etching equipment changed?
- At its earnings briefing on 3 November, the company said its next-generation RENA-E advanced dry etching equipment had been adopted and entered volume production at multiple customers in front-end wafer manufacturing, including memory, logic and specialty-process integrated circuits. New orders have begun to ramp up gradually.
- The equipment is progressing smoothly through adoption and validation at multiple new domestic customers; the same type of dry etching equipment has also secured its first order from a European customer. Volume production at existing customers, validation at new customers and orders from a new region represent distinct sources of order growth.
What steps remain before new products ramp up?
- The company is developing new metal etching, wafer-edge etching and deposition, and high-selectivity etching equipment, as well as a multi-chamber process integration platform.
- Some projects completed product development and entered customer validation in the first three quarters of 2026. The company said these products would gradually ramp up after passing customer validation in succession, so customer validation remains a step between completion of development and the receipt of volume orders.
What foundation do existing mature product lines provide?
- Analysts at Soochow Securities believe the company has established three major categories of mature equipment product lines: dry photoresist stripping, rapid thermal processing, and dry etching and plasma surface treatment.
- Among them, the next-generation Optima series of advanced dry photoresist stripping equipment has been adopted and entered volume production at multiple customers in front-end wafer manufacturing and advanced packaging. Volume-production applications of existing products and customer validation of new equipment projects are at different stages.