Behind China's Semiconductor Breakthrough: The Secretive State-Owned Firm Behind Market Jitters

Behind China's technological breakthrough in advanced lithography equipment, which recently caused massive tremors in the global semiconductor market, is a previously veil-shrouded state-owned enterprise named Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (or Ascenage / Eisengna).

According to Reuters on the 28th (local time), the Shanghai-based state-owned enterprise, Eisengna Electronic Technology Group, has absorbed a massive number of development personnel from major Chinese lithography companies and startups, taking the lead in producing domestic immersion DUV equipment.

Lithography equipment is core machinery used to etch circuits onto semiconductor wafers.

Among them, immersion DUV equipment fills the space between the projection lens and the wafer with water to etch microscopic circuits, and can also be used to produce advanced semiconductors.

Eisengna, which has a registered capital of 1.5 trillion won, has operated so secretly that it does not even have an official website. However, it plans to produce around 5 immersion DUV equipment units this year and around 20 units next year, supplying them to domestic semiconductor companies such as SMIC and ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT).

As news of China's technological self-reliance broke, shares of ASML, which virtually monopolizes the global market, plummeted. In the domestic stock market yesterday alone, the stock prices of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix plunged by 13.4% and 14.7%, respectively, sending shockwaves across Asian stock markets overall.

Chinese state-run media outlets have launched a massive public opinion campaign.

In an editorial published today, China's state-run Global Times claimed that "the plunge of global semiconductor stocks, including ASML, triggered simply by the news of the development of Chinese lithography equipment shows the West's anxiety over China's technological catch-up."

At the same time, it pointed out that U.S. export controls are a mutually destructive measure that merely deprives Western companies of opportunities to cooperate with the Chinese market.

Chinese media argued that "barriers based on export controls and technological monopolies cannot stop China's will to strengthen its self-reliance and competitiveness in the science and technology sector."

Reported by Lee Hyeon-yeong | Video by Kim Hye-ju | Graphics by Lee Jeong-ju | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.