Ion Implantation Machine: One Of The Four Core Semiconductor Equipment
In recent years, in order to quickly break through the bottleneck of localization of integrated circuits, domestic ion injectors are also supported by national policies.
In 2014, the Outline for the Development and Promotion of the National Integrated Circuit Industry clearly pointed out that it is necessary to strengthen the combination of integrated circuit equipment, materials and processes, develop key equipment such as lithography machine, etching machine and ion injection machine, develop key materials such as photoresist and large-size silicon wafers, strengthen the collaboration between integrated circuit manufacturing enterprises and equipment and material enterprises, and accelerate the industrialization process. Enhancing industrial supporting capacity;
In 2017, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the Guidance Catalogue of Key Products and Services for Strategic Emerging Industries (2016 edition). Integrated circuit equipment mainly includes 6 inch /8 inch /12 inch integrated circuit production line used in the lithography machine, etching machine, ion injection machine, annealing equipment, single crystal growth equipment, film growth equipment, chemical mechanical polishing equipment, packaging equipment, testing equipment, etc. Integrated circuit ion injectors included in the catalogue;
In 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the Guidance Catalog for the Promotion and Application of the First Major Technical Equipment, which also included ion implantation machines.
Ion implantation machine: One of the key equipment in semiconductor wafer manufacturing and other fields
In the fabrication of semiconductor wafers, due to the poor conductivity of pure silicon, it is necessary to add a small amount of impurities to change its structure and conductivity to become a useful semiconductor, a process called doping. At present, there are mainly two kinds of doping: high temperature thermal diffusion method and ion implantation method, and ion implantation occupies the mainstream position:
High temperature thermal diffusion method: The doped gas is introduced into a high temperature furnace with silicon wafers, and the impurities are diffused into the silicon wafers. Due to the defects of thermal diffusion, such as difficult precision control and high thermal defects, it has been rarely used in the present process.
Ion implantation method: through the acceleration and guidance of the ion implantation machine, the doped ions in the form of ion beam incident into the material to go, the ion beam and the atoms or molecules in the material a series of physical and chemical reactions, incident ions gradually lose energy, and cause changes in the composition, structure and performance of the material surface, and finally stay in the material, to achieve the optimization or change of the material surface performance. Ion implantation has the advantages of precise control of energy and dose, good doping uniformity, high purity, low temperature doping, not affected by injection materials, etc., and has become the standard process for manufacturing large-diameter silicon wafers with characteristic sizes below 0.25um.
Ion implantation machine, lithography machine, etching machine and coating machine are the four core equipment, and the difficulty of development is second only to lithography machine.
As the integrated circuit process continues to shrink to 14nm and below, the junction depth of the source drain decreases accordingly. In order to achieve shallow doping, low energy large beam (high dose/shallow doping) has gradually become the mainstream, and its technical difficulty is the highest. According to the statistics of Pudong Investment, low energy large beam currently occupies 55% of the ion implantation machine market.
Currently, ion injectors can be used in many fields, including integrated circuits and IGBT manufacturing, solar cell production, and AMOLED panel manufacturing.
The ion injector is mainly composed of ion source, magnetic analyzer, acceleration tube or deceleration tube, focusing and scanning system, and process chamber (target chamber and background processing system). When the equipment is working, the ions extracted from the ion source are selected by the magnetic analyzer. After the analysis, the ions are accelerated or decelerated to change the energy of ions, and then the ion beam is evenly injected into the surface of the material through the two-dimensional deflection scanner. The charge integrator can accurately measure the number of ions injected, and the depth of ion injection can be accurately controlled by adjusting the energy of ions injected.
The global ion implantation machine market is about $3 billion, of which semiconductors are about $26. The industry of ion injectors for integrated circuits has high competition barriers and high industry concentration.
At present, only Kaisitong and Beijing Zhongkexin Electronic Equipment Co., LTD., a subsidiary of Wanyai Enterprise, have the research and development and manufacturing capability of ion injectors in China. However, in recent years, with the continuous investment in research and development of these two suppliers and the support of external factors, relatively good progress has been made in the industry of ion injectors.
Kaisetong: the world's leading solar ion implantation machine manufacturer, power IC/IGBT/AMOLED
Shanghai Kaisitong Semiconductor Co., LTD., founded in April 2009, is a high-tech enterprise integrating scientific research and manufacturing with ion beam technology as the core. It mainly develops, produces, remanufactures and sells internationally leading high-end ion implantation machines. It is mainly applied in photovoltaic solar cell, semiconductor integrated circuit and IGBT, new flat panel display (AMOLED) field.
In 2015, Kaisitong completed the joint-stock transformation, was listed on the New Third Board in 2016, and was acquired by the listed company Wanye Enterprise with 398 million yuan in cash in 2018, becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wanye Enterprise. (Note: The top three shareholders of Wanye 2019H1 are Shanghai Pudong Technology Investment Co., LTD., 28.16%, Sanlin Wanye (Shanghai) Enterprise Group Co., LTD., 13.53%, and National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co., LTD., 5.5%)
In 2018, Kaisetong achieved operating income of 108 million yuan and net profit of 12.09 million yuan returned to the mother. The compound growth rate of revenue from 2016 to 2018 was 132%. The net profit returned to the mother began to turn around losses in 2017 and continued to grow in 2018.
It is known that Kaisetong has mass-produced four types of solar ion implantation machines: IonSolar, iPV-2000, iPV-3000 and IPV-6000 (the upgraded version of iPV-3000 has doubled the production capacity and improved the cost performance. It has been successfully rolled off the production line in September and moved to the customer's production line in October), leading the world. In 2017, Casseton sold a total of 15 iPV-2000 and iPV-3000 units, while its rival Intevac sold only 2 units in the same period (the data of Japanese vacuum was not disclosed), thus Casseton took the lead in the industry. In December 2020, Wanye Enterprise issued an announcement after the A-share market close, announcing that Beijing Kaisitong, which is controlled by the company, intends to sell three 12-inch ion injection machines to Core Technology.
At present, the low-energy high-beam ion implantation machine of Kaesitong has reached or exceeded the foreign similar products in the core indexes of low-energy and high-beam, which can meet the practical application of domestic integrated circuit industry.
Zhongkexin: a leading manufacturer of ion injectors in China, we have made progress in integrated circuit products
Established in 2003, Beijing Zhongkexin Electronic Equipment Co., Ltd. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Electronics Technology Group Co., LTD. (subordinate to China Electronics Technology Group Co., LTD.). Zhongkexin is a high-tech enterprise specializing in the research and development, production, manufacturing and sales of ion injection machines, as well as the production and sales of photovoltaic products.
Zhongkexin has undertaken the project of 100nm large-angle ion implantation machine in the "Tenth Five-Year Plan" 863 Plan, the R&D and industrialization project of 12-inch 90-65nm large-angle ion implantation machine in the "11th Five-Year Plan" special 12-inch 90-65nm large-angle ion implantation machine and the R&D and industrialization project of 12-inch 45-22nm low-energy large-beam ion implantation machine in the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan". Among them, the "11th Five-Year Plan" 90-65nm large-angle beam ion implantation machine has industrialization capability, entered the domestic VLSI manufacturing line and achieved mass production. In 2016, it achieved the first domestic machine with mass production exceeding one million. In 2015 and 2016, it was awarded the China Semiconductor Innovation Product and Technology Award by China Semiconductor Industry Association.
According to the data of China Tendering website, from 2016 to September 2019, a total of 5 manufacturers won the bidding of Huali Integrated ion injection machine project, and a total of 26 won the bidding, among which Zhongkexin won 1, making progress and breakthrough.
On 17th, 2021, China Electronics Technology Group Co., LTD announced that the equipment sub-group of the group has successfully realized the localization of the whole spectrum of ion injector products, including medium beam, large beam, high energy, special application and the third generation semiconductor plasma injector, with the process segment covering up to 28nm. It is an important link in China's chip manufacturing industry chain and a one-stop solution of ion injection machine for global chip manufacturing enterprises.
It is understood that China Electronics is the main military electronic force in China, network and information industry "national team", national strategic scientific and technological force, with a relatively complete scientific and technological innovation system in the field of electronic information. At present, CDIC owns more than 500 enterprises and public institutions, including 47 national research institutes and 11 listed companies, with more than 200,000 employees and 35 national key laboratories, research centers and innovation centers.
