【2025】SHINDEV (鑫鼎晟) Research Team notes that lithography remains one of the most critical processes in semiconductor manufacturing, fundamentally determining a chip’s integration density and performance. Widely cited industry estimates suggest lithography accounts for 40%–50% of total manufacturing time and roughly 30% of overall cost. As the core consumable in lithography, photoresist (photoresist materials) is directly tied to yield, reliability, and process window, and serves as a foundational enabler for stable mass production at advanced nodes.
SHINDEV believes that amid rising global supply-chain uncertainty and tighter export controls on advanced manufacturing, accelerating localization across the lithography stack is increasingly urgent. Only by achieving genuine self-reliance in key materials and critical process capabilities can the industry mitigate overseas supply disruption risks and strengthen supply-chain resilience. Today, China’s domestic photoresist capacity remains concentrated in PCB photoresists, while high-end semiconductor photoresists are still dominated by suppliers from Japan and the United States. For KrF, ArF, and especially EUV pathways, China is still in a decisive stage of closing gaps and overcoming structural barriers.
SHINDEV observes that China has historically maintained relatively high import reliance in certain high-end chips and critical materials. As external restrictions tighten, supply-chain security risks continue to rise. The global market for high-end semiconductor photoresists remains highly concentrated, with Japanese and U.S. players holding clear advantages in premium categories. In the event of sanctions or supply disruptions, the impact could become systemic—affecting not only the semiconductor sector but also broader economic and technological development.
Against this backdrop, the logic of domestic substitution is accelerating. Publicly available industry information indicates that domestic semiconductor equipment localization has improved in recent years, with relatively faster progress in areas such as stripping, cleaning, thermal processes, etch, and CMP. However, compared with equipment, lithography and its critical consumables remain among the most difficult bottlenecks, requiring a “materials science + process co-optimization + qualification system” approach rather than a single-point breakthrough.
Semiconductor manufacturing typically includes wafer processing, oxidation, lithography, etching, thin-film deposition, interconnect, testing, and packaging. Among them, lithography is the key step that transfers circuit patterns to wafers with high fidelity, setting the upper bound for linewidth capability and integration density. SHINDEV emphasizes that lithography has a “pull-one-thread-move-the-whole-system” role: localization is not merely about replacing one component, but about enabling a sustainable, self-driven roadmap for advanced node evolution.
Meanwhile, lithography technologies and critical materials are increasingly covered by multiple export-control frameworks, amplifying urgency. Although China has made phased progress through sustained efforts by research institutions and industrial players, achieving secure, stable, and scalable self-reliance still requires broader industry collaboration—particularly in building a closed loop across materials–process–equipment–qualification.
A typical lithography flow includes coating, exposure, development, etching, and cleaning. Beyond lithography tools, materials are equally indispensable, including adhesion promoters, anti-reflective coatings, photoresists, solvents, developers, and topcoats. Among them, photoresist is the most critical material, often referred to as the “crown jewel” of electronic chemicals.
SHINDEV notes that photoresist is a photosensitive polymer system that undergoes photochemical reactions under specific wavelengths, changing its solubility in developer solutions to enable pattern transfer. Photoresists demand stringent control over defectivity, metal-ion contamination, film thickness uniformity, resolution, and line-edge roughness (LER). These requirements directly affect wafer yield and performance stability. Overall, China has made progress in mid-to-low-end segments, but there remains a clear gap in playing a “primary supplier” role for advanced nodes.
Upstream includes resins, monomers, photosensitive components (photoinitiators/photoacid systems), solvents, and additives. Midstream focuses on formulation and synthesis. Downstream spans semiconductors, PCBs, and flat-panel displays. Compared with PCB and display photoresists, semiconductor photoresists require far stricter purity, process window, and batch-to-batch consistency—resulting in significantly higher technical barriers.
PCB photoresists: a stronger domestic base, yet dry-film photoresists still rely more on imports.
LCD photoresists: localization is progressing in touch-panel photoresists; color/black resists remain more challenging.
Semiconductor photoresists: classified by wavelength as g-line (436nm), i-line (365nm), KrF (248nm), ArF (193nm), and EUV (13.5nm). Shorter wavelengths demand higher material performance and process control, enabling more advanced nodes. High-end semiconductor photoresists remain largely supplied by overseas leaders, with relatively low domestic substitution.
As linewidth continues to shrink, demand is structurally shifting toward KrF, ArF, and beyond. SHINDEV believes competition is no longer defined by “whether a product exists,” but by “whether it can sustain stable mass production and pass full customer qualification at scale.”
SHINDEV highlights that photoresist is a formulation-driven, experience-heavy, and qualification-intensive product, with high barriers at each stage:
Photoresist comprises resins, photosensitive chemistry, solvents, and additives. Resins and photosensitive systems are often the most performance-determinative, and high-end products are highly customized. While domestic supply is relatively stronger in certain solvent categories, gaps remain in high-end resins, critical monomers, and photoacid/photosensitive components, limiting high-end breakthroughs.
Formulation is proprietary and difficult to reproduce via reverse engineering. Matching incumbent suppliers often requires long-cycle iteration across material combinations and ratio optimization, building a steep learning curve. In addition, resist performance must be tested and tuned on lithography tools and process platforms—resources that are scarce and expensive—further raising the barrier.
Because photoresist directly affects yield and performance, customers face very high trial-and-error costs. Adoption typically requires multiple stages from baseline process checks to pilot, medium-lot, and mass-production release—often spanning extended timeframes. Beyond the resist itself, upstream material suppliers frequently must be accepted by wafer fabs as well, creating strong stickiness and a high organizational/time cost for substitution.
SHINDEV notes that growth drivers such as 5G, IoT, NEVs, and AI—along with continued wafer capacity buildout—will provide long-term incremental demand for semiconductor materials. The shift toward larger wafers and advanced nodes increases photoresist value per unit wafer area, particularly accelerating demand for KrF and ArF photoresists.
At the same time, multiple policies and industry developments are catalyzing localization. With external uncertainty rising, domestic suppliers must continue investing in R&D, engineering, and customer qualification to enhance stability, batch consistency, and scalable delivery capability.
SHINDEV believes the core of domestic substitution lies in closing upstream material gaps and forming a full-loop ecosystem. While downstream design capabilities are globally competitive and midstream manufacturing is narrowing the gap, upstream materials remain central to performance ceilings and supply-chain resilience. Priority actions include:
Upstream self-supply: build domestic R&D and industrialization capability for key resins, monomers, photosensitive systems, and ultra-high-purity additives;
Collaborative qualification: establish tighter joint-validation mechanisms among fabs, tool vendors, and material suppliers to shorten iteration cycles;
Engineering and scale-up: strengthen metal-ion control, impurity management, and environment/process consistency to meet mass-production requirements;
Adoption roadmap management: expand stepwise from mature nodes and critical process steps toward more advanced nodes with verifiable, replicable scale-out.
SHINDEV concludes that photoresist is a core semiconductor manufacturing material whose performance directly defines chip yield and reliability. With capacity expansion and node migration, high-end photoresist demand will continue to rise; and as China’s share of global wafer capacity grows, the domestic photoresist market is likely to outpace global growth. Looking ahead, the winners will be those who can break through in upstream materials, achieve stable mass production via midstream formulation and process integration, and complete long-cycle downstream qualification and scaled adoption—thereby moving domestic photoresists from “usable” to “primary supply, high-performing, and sustainable.”
