Key investment points:
Under the background of global core shortage, the capacity expansion of wafer factories is gradually ushering in the landing, and the market demand of IC photoresist is steadily rising. Based on the pressure of capacity supply under the background of core shortage and the expectation of long-term growth of the industry, since the second half of 2020, major wafer factories around the world have entered a crazy production expansion mode. Referring to the construction and production cycle of the wafer factory, the expanded production capacity of the wafer factory will be gradually completed and put into operation in the second half of 2022. As a key consumable in the wafer manufacturing process, IC photoresist has a clear market growth space. The construction of new production capacity of wafer factories in Chinese Mainland is in the leading position in the world in this round of production expansion. The demand for photoresist grows faster. It is estimated that the global IC market will grow from US $1.7 billion to US $2.4 billion from 2020 to 2025, with a compound growth rate of about 6%; The scale of China’s IC photoresist market increased from about 2.5 billion yuan to 4 billion yuan, with a compound growth rate of 15%.
Seek independent and controllable industrial chain, and IC photoresist ushers in the window of opportunity for domestic substitution. The global IC photoresist market is highly concentrated, led by Japanese and American enterprises, with Cr5 as high as 87%. As a key basic raw material in the upstream, IC photoresist is an inevitable choice under the consideration of national strategic security. At present, Chinese Mainland is undertaking the third large-scale semiconductor industry transfer in the world, which provides an excellent opportunity and a definite demand market for the upstream development of the industrial chain. At the same time, with the support of national will injection and industrial capital, the localization of IC photoresist has ushered in the best time.
How to view the opportunities of local IC photoresist enterprises?
1) the localization of DUV photoresist is the main task of local IC photoresist manufacturers at present: DUV photoresist covers the mainstream chip manufacturing demand, accounting for more than 80% of the market. At the same time, the semiconductor industry has the characteristics of coordinated development. In the next few years, IC wafer foundry in Chinese Mainland will continue to work in the mature process field. Correspondingly, DUV photoresist has become the main research direction of local manufacturers.
2) at present, local enterprises have achieved mass production of KrF photoresist and small batch delivery of ARF photoresist, and the break is imminent: product process breakthrough and downstream customer verification and import are important marginal tracking points for local IC photoresist enterprises to break the break. At present, the KrF field, represented by Beijing Kehua, has a 100 ton capacity and has been delivered to China’s mainstream wafer factories in large-scale mass production; In the field of ARF, represented by Jiangsu Nata Opto-Electronic Material Co.Ltd(300346) has passed the customer verification and delivered a small amount of goods.
Investment suggestion: under the catalysis of external environmental factors such as global chip shortage and marginal political risk, the demand for IC photoresist increment and substitution is clear. We are optimistic about the breaking opportunities of local photoresist manufacturers and suggest paying attention to the local potential army Red Avenue New Materials Group Co.Ltd(603650) , Hmt(Xiamen)New Technical Materials Co.Ltd(603306) , Jiangsu Nata Opto-Electronic Material Co.Ltd(300346) , Crystal Clear Electronic Material Co.Ltd(300655) , etc. in the field of DUV photoresist in the future.
Risk warning: the production of Wafer Factory fails to meet the expectations, the R & D of local manufacturers fails to meet the expectations, and the product verification progress fails to meet the expectations
