It should be from 2020 that photoresist has become a hot word that can often be heard in the news.

The frequency of its appearance may be comparable to that of lithography machines. The reason is that although in chip manufacturing, photoresists are used in conjunction with lithography machines. Different chip processes require different photoresists, and daily American manufacturers account for about 87% of the share, and the import ratio of domestic photoresist is as high as 90%.

In fact, it is not only that the proportion of our imported photoresist is as high as 90%, but a chip power like South Korea also relies on Japan’s photoresist, and the import ratio is also as high as 80% or 90%.

Therefore, in 2019, Japan launched sanctions on the Korean semiconductor industry, and controlled the export of the three major raw materials (fluoropolyimide, photoresist, and high-purity hydrogen fluoride) required for semiconductor and panel manufacturing.

For a time, the chip industry in South Korea was greatly affected, causing the Korean chip companies to be in a state of turmoil.

So later, South Korea proposed a “de-daily chemical” strategy, and spent a lot of money for self-research. If you want to promote the localization of materials and semiconductor equipment that are highly dependent on Japan, the first thing is to start with self-research of photoresist, such as Samsung, LG, etc. want to develop their own photoresist to reduce imports.

So now more than 2 years have passed, how is the situation? According to BusinessKorea, South Korea’s reliance on photoresist imported from Japan has dropped from 100% to 50%. As for whether this value is true or not, it is not known whether it is accurate or not.

But no matter whether it is true or false, behind this figure, I think it is still very worthwhile for us to learn. It is definitely a big progress that South Korea can reduce the dependence to 50% in just 2 years.

You know, according to SEMI statistics, the size of China’s photoresist market in 2020 is about 350 million US dollars (about 2.267 billion yuan), of which 90% of the photoresist used for advanced chip manufacturing still relies on imports.

Once Japanese manufacturers limit the supply, Chinese chip manufacturers will inevitably fall into the dilemma of “no glue available”, and domestic photoresists are mostly low-end, with low output, which cannot solve the problem. Therefore, in the global lithography system At the moment when foreign companies occupy the right to speak, photoresist is a must for China, so we really must learn from South Korea.