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Anji Microelectronics is China's leading domestic supplier of chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) slurries and one of the few Chinese semiconductor-materials companies with high-volume sales at leading-edge logic and 3D NAND fabs. Its "3+1" technology platform covers polishing slurries, functional wet electronic chemicals (post-etch residue removers, photoresist strippers, post-CMP cleaners, etchants) and electroplating solutions and additives. The "+1" is in-house development of critical upstream raw materials such as ceria abrasives. Revenue rose from RMB 687 million in 2021 to RMB 2,504 million in 2025, with net margins of about 30%. Anji's share of the global CMP slurry market rose from about 8% in 2023 to 11% in 2024 and 13% in 2025, by the company's estimate. That makes it a credible challenger to Entegris (CMC Materials), Fujifilm, Resonac, Fujimi, Merck and DuPont/Qnity. Anji grows by being localised, customising products with fabs and moving into new chemistries. It is now preparing an A+H dual listing to fund overseas expansion, as AI-driven demand for advanced logic, memory and advanced packaging increases the number of polishing and cleaning steps per wafer. **What the company does.** Anji develops, makes and sells formulated chemical consumables used in semiconductor wafer fabrication and advanced packaging. In its annual report the company describes its main business as "the R&D and industrialisation of key semiconductor materials". Its products are "different series of chemical mechanical polishing slurries, functional wet electronic chemicals, and electroplating solutions and additives, mainly applied in integrated circuit manufacturing and advanced packaging." The company's stated strategic positioning is "rooted in China, serving the world" (立足中国，服务全球). Its development concept is "technology innovation and intellectual property," built on its "3+1" technology platform. **Business model.** Anji earns almost all its revenue from product sales of formulated consumables, which are bought again each time wafers are processed. There is no material licensing, subscription or service revenue. Revenue depends on: **Wafer starts and utilisation:** at customer fabs. Consumption scales with wafer volume. **Process-step count per wafer:** More metal layers, 3D NAND stacking, gate-all-around and backside power, and hybrid bonding all add CMP and cleaning steps. **Qualification wins:** Fab qualification takes 1–3 years per process step. Once qualified, a slurry is rarely changed during a node's life, which makes revenue sticky. The company describes its offering as localised, customised and integrated. It co-develops formulations with customers, often for a single process step, and supplies matched slurry-and-cleaner sets. **Value-chain position.** Anji sits between upstream abrasive and chemical suppliers and downstream wafer fabs and outsourced packaging companies: **Upstream:** colloidal silica, fumed silica and ceria abrasives, specialty organics, oxidisers, corrosion inhibitors, surfactants and high-purity acids. Ultra-high-purity colloidal silica still comes mainly from Japanese suppliers such as Fuso Chemical. Anji is reducing this dependence by producing its own ceria abrasives and qualifying domestic abrasive particles. **Midstream (Anji):** formulation, blending, purification, filtration, packaging and in-fab technical service. **Downstream:** foundries, logic and memory makers (DRAM and 3D NAND), specialty fabs (CIS, power, analogue, MEMS, compound semiconductor) and advanced-packaging houses (TSV, bumping, wafer-level packaging, hybrid bonding). **Customer types and end markets.** Anji's products are used in logic, memory, analogue, power devices, sensors, third-generation (wide-bandgap) semiconductors and other specialty-process chips. The company says it is in the mainstream supplier lists of leading semiconductor customers. Industry research identifies SMIC and Yangtze Memory (YMTC) as anchor customers where Anji holds the leading materials share, and TSMC among its customers. Advanced packaging (TSV, TGV, hybrid bonding, polymer planarisation) is a fast-growing second end market. **Independent characterisation.** Anji is a high-margin, R&D-heavy specialty chemical formulator. Its economics resemble the CMP slurry franchises of Cabot Microelectronics before its acquisition by Entegris: gross margins in the mid-to-high 50s, R&D at about 18% of sales, and very low selling expense (1.9% of revenue in 2025), because a few large fabs buy through long qualification cycles. Its competitive edge is local proximity, customisation speed and the policy-backed drive for supply-chain localisation in China. Its main weaknesses are heavy reliance on Chinese fab capex, some imported raw materials, and a still-small base outside China. Profitability has also become noisier because large fair-value gains on equity investments are now booked in net profit.

Hengkun is one of the few companies in mainland China that develops and mass-produces lithography and thin-film deposition materials qualified for 12-inch (300 mm) wafer fabrication. Its core products are spin-on carbon (SOC) hard masks, bottom anti-reflective coatings (BARC), and i-Line and KrF photoresists. In precursors its main product is high-purity tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS). These materials go into advanced 3D NAND, DRAM and logic chips at 90 nm and below. The company started out importing and distributing foreign materials, mostly from Korean suppliers, and used that business to win fab relationships before replacing the imports with its own formulations. By FY2025, 86.66% of main-business revenue came from products it makes itself. On Frost & Sullivan data it was the largest domestic supplier of both SOC and BARC to China's market in 2023. Its SOC share passed 10% in 2024. ArF immersion photoresist, SiARC, top coats, metal-based and high-k precursors, and spin-on dielectrics make up its next wave of products. The company depends heavily on a few memory customers: its largest customer generated 55.17% of FY2025 sales. ### What the company does Hengkun develops, makes and sells critical materials for front-end integrated-circuit wafer fabrication. It works in two process families: **Lithography materials:** These are used in the coating stage of photolithography. They include photoresists (i-Line and KrF in volume, ArF immersion in small batches) and the ancillary films that make patterning possible at fine pitches: SOC carbon hard masks, BARC, silicon-containing anti-reflective coatings (SiARC) and top coats. **Precursor materials:** These are used in chemical vapour deposition (CVD) and atomic layer deposition (ALD) to grow thin films. The main product is 9N-grade TEOS for silicon-oxide deposition, followed by silicon-based, metal-based and high-k precursors now in qualification. Alongside its own products, the company still runs an "introduced" (引进) business. It imports lithography materials, precursors, electronic specialty gases and wet chemicals from foreign makers such as SK Materials Performance (SKMP), Soulbrain, SK trichem, Hansol, KDK, SK specialty and Wonik, and resells them to domestic fabs. Revenue from this business is booked on a net basis, so its reported gross margins are about 98%. ### The company's own description (FY2025 annual report and prospectus) The company calls itself an innovator "dedicated to the R&D and industrial application of key materials in the integrated-circuit field". It says it is one of the few domestic companies able to develop and mass-produce critical materials for 12-inch wafer manufacturing. It says its products are indispensable for lithography and thin-film deposition in advanced NAND, DRAM and sub-90 nm logic. It also says it has displaced foreign products at several leading domestic 12-inch fabs. Products in volume supply are SOC, BARC, i-Line photoresist, KrF photoresist and TEOS. The company describes its strategy as moving from "introduce, digest, absorb, re-innovate" to "self-production first, independently controllable". ### Independent characterisation In practice, Hengkun is a process-material formulator focused on memory. Its five largest customers in the prospectus period were all among the ten largest wafer makers in mainland China by 2023 capacity. Three of them (Customers A, B and C) make memory chips and two (D and E) make logic chips. SOC is the economic core: it has made up more than 75% of self-produced lithography revenue in every reported period. SOC volumes scale with the number of patterning layers in high-stack 3D NAND and advanced DRAM. Because of this, the company's growth follows domestic memory capital spending and localisation policy more than general semiconductor demand. ### Revenue model | Revenue type | Description | Share of FY2025 main-business revenue (%) | |---|---|---| | Self-produced products | Own formulations made at Zhangzhou (lithography) and Dalian (precursors) and sold to fabs on volume purchase orders after qualification | 86.66 | | Introduced products | Foreign products imported and resold; revenue recognised net of cost | 13.34 | **Self-produced products:** Description: Own formulations made at Zhangzhou (lithography) and Dalian (precursors) and sold to fabs on volume purchase orders after qualification; Share of FY2025 main-business revenue (%): 86.66 **Introduced products:** Description: Foreign products imported and resold; revenue recognised net of cost; Share of FY2025 main-business revenue (%): 13.34 All revenue comes from selling products. The company has no subscription, licensing or service revenue. Prices are set per product with each fab and are typically renegotiated every year. The prospectus notes that customers negotiated price cuts on self-produced lithography materials in 2023 and 2024. ### Value-chain position and end markets Hengkun sits between upstream suppliers of resins, photo-acid generators, solvents and high-purity silicon feedstock, much of which is imported, and downstream wafer fabs. In 2026 it began integrating backwards: SOC resin, BARC resin and ArF immersion photoresist resin were all in self-production by the end of June 2026. Its end markets are 3D NAND flash (128 layers and above), DRAM (18 nm and below), logic (7–90 nm, with stated support for 14 nm and below) and specialty-process fabs.

FUJIFILM Electronic Materials is one of the broadest "one-stop" suppliers of semiconductor process materials in the world. Its range runs from front-end lithography to back-end advanced packaging, and few chemical suppliers cover that much of the process. Its revenue engine is copper-interconnect CMP slurry, where it holds the world's No. 1 share. That is supported by a leading share in negative-tone-imaging (NTI) developers, a near-dominant position in color-filter materials for image sensors (Wave Control Mosaic), a seat among the handful of EUV photoresist suppliers, and a fast-growing advanced-packaging dielectrics franchise (ZEMATES polyimides). The 2023 purchase of Entegris's high-purity process-chemicals business added wet chemicals and on-site chemical management. The business is a captive unit of a ¥3.4 trillion diversified conglomerate. That parent provides a balance sheet able to fund a ¥170bn three-year capex-plus-R&D program, but it also dilutes the business's visibility to equity investors. Generative-AI demand has turned it into Fujifilm's fastest-growing profit pool. Semiconductor Materials revenue roughly doubled between FY2021 and FY2025, and management targets ¥500bn by FY2030. --- **What the business does.** FUJIFILM Electronic Materials formulates, purifies, manufactures and supplies specialty chemicals and functional materials that semiconductor makers consume in wafer fabrication and packaging. These materials are consumables. They are used up wafer by wafer, so demand follows wafer starts, layer counts and process steps rather than capital-equipment cycles. Fujifilm describes the portfolio as covering "almost all areas of the semiconductor manufacturing process from cutting-edge to legacy nodes." It lists photoresists, photolithography-related materials, CMP slurries, post-CMP cleaners, thin-film materials, photosensitive insulating materials (polyimides under the ZEMATES brand), high-purity process chemicals and image-sensor color-filter materials (Wave Control Mosaic). **Company's own description.** The FUJIFILM Holdings FY2025 materials describe the business as offering "a wide range of materials used throughout the entire semiconductor manufacturing process, from front-end to back-end", with "an extensive portfolio covering semiconductor manufacturing processes from leading-edge to legacy nodes" and "a global supply chain with manufacturing and research and development sites in Asia, the United States, and Europe." Group materials summarize the strategy as delivering "one-stop solutions" to customers. **Business model.** The business sells products under multi-year supply qualifications. A material is designed in at a specific process step at a specific fab. Once qualified, it is very hard to replace, because re-qualification is costly and puts yield at risk. Revenue is almost entirely product sales. The service element is the Total Chemical Management (TCM) business acquired from Entegris, which provides on-site and off-site chemical logistics in Southeast Asia and Europe. There is no material licensing or subscription revenue. **Product sales (formulated chemistries and materials):** Share of business revenue: Majority; exact split not publicly disclosed; Comment: CMP slurries, cleaners, resists, developers, polyimides, color filters, HPPCs **Services (TCM chemical management, logistics):** Share of business revenue: Small; not publicly disclosed; Comment: Acquired with the Entegris process chemicals business, October 2023 **Licensing / subscription:** Share of business revenue: None material; Comment: — **Value-chain position.** The business sits between commodity and specialty chemical feedstocks upstream (solvents, acids, abrasives such as silica and ceria, monomers, photoacid generators) and integrated device manufacturers, foundries, memory makers and OSATs downstream. It adds value through molecular design, nano-dispersion, ultra-high purification (parts-per-trillion metals), contamination control and co-optimization with customers' process recipes. **Customer types.** The customers are leading-edge logic foundries (Fujifilm names TSMC-class "major foundries" as a source of strong sales), memory makers (including Samsung Electronics, which gave Fujifilm a "Most Valuable Partner Award" in November 2025, and other DRAM/NAND producers), U.S. integrated device manufacturers, image-sensor makers, OSATs and advanced-packaging houses, and new-entrant fabs such as Tata Electronics' Dholera fab in India. **End-markets.** The end-markets are AI accelerators and high-performance computing (the main growth driver since FY2024), high-bandwidth memory and conventional DRAM, NAND, smartphones and PCs, automotive and industrial semiconductors, CMOS image sensors for mobile, automotive and security applications, and advanced packaging (2.5D/3D integration, hybrid bonding and redistribution layers). **Independent characterization.** The business is a scale specialty-chemicals franchise whose economics depend on CMP. Copper CMP slurries and post-CMP cleaners give it a defensible, high-volume position that benefits directly from more metal layers and 3D stacking in AI chips. Lithography materials are strategically important, especially EUV and NTI, but Fujifilm ranks fifth globally in photosensitive materials, behind Japanese peers TOK, JSR and Shin-Etsu. Its strongest growth options are advanced-packaging dielectrics and PFAS-free chemistries. Operating disclosure is thin: segment operating income is reported only at the Electronics level, so the margins of the semiconductor business alone have to be inferred.

Brewer Science is one of the founding companies of semiconductor lithography materials. Its 1981 invention of the ARC® bottom anti-reflective coating made fine-line optical patterning practical, and ARC® coatings are still an industry reference for controlling reflection under photoresist. Forty-five years later, the company is a privately held, employee-owned specialty materials maker. Its portfolio covers anti-reflective coatings, OptiStack® multilayer patterning stacks, E²Stack® EUV underlayers, BrewerBOND® temporary bonding and debonding systems for advanced packaging, and protective coatings. It also runs a smaller smart devices and printed electronics business. In August 2026 it bought Heraeus Epurio's semiconductor chemicals business in Dayton, Ohio. That deal moved the company back up the supply chain into the synthesis of ultrapure photoacid generators, photoinitiators, monomers and crosslinkers, which are the building blocks of resists and underlayers. Brewer Science does all of its R&D and manufacturing in the United States and serves customers through Asian, European and U.S. offices. It competes against much larger Japanese, European and U.S. chemical groups on the strength of its formulation know-how, its long relationships with customers, and supply-chain integrity that is increasingly U.S.-based. --- ### What the company does Brewer Science develops, formulates and manufactures specialty materials used to make microelectronic devices. Its products are thin functional films applied by spin-coating during wafer processing. They are not left in the finished chip as active parts. Instead, they make it possible to pattern, thin, stack and protect the wafer: they control reflections during exposure, transfer patterns through etch, hold thinned wafers on carriers, and protect device features from aggressive chemistries. The company's own description is that it is a global leader in developing and manufacturing next-generation materials and processes for advanced microdevices. Since 1981 it has expanded into advanced lithography, advanced packaging, smart devices and printed electronics, and it also offers quality monitoring systems for water and air. ### Business model and revenue model The model is almost entirely product-based. Brewer Science sells consumable formulated chemicals, priced per volume, to semiconductor fabs, outsourced assembly and test companies (OSATs), and research organizations. Because these materials are qualified into a specific process, a customer that adopts one usually keeps buying it for the life of that process node or packaging flow. This produces recurring, sticky revenue tied to wafer starts. Three secondary revenue streams sit alongside the products: **Technology licensing:** Brewer Science has licensed its ARC® technology to Nissan Chemical for more than 20 years. In April 2015 the two companies extended the arrangement through 2028, under a joint label that guarantees supply of ARC® and OptiStack® products to customers in Asia. **Services:** Process engineering, application testing and analytical testing support customer qualification. The Smart Devices and Printed Electronics Foundry offers design-through-integration services for printed sensors. **Smart devices:** Sensor systems such as the InFlect® water quality platform and a smart warehouse monitor. These are early-stage relative to the materials business. Equipment was a fourth line of business until May 2017, when the company sold its Cee® processing-equipment unit to focus on materials. ### Position in the value chain Brewer Science is a tier-one materials supplier to chipmakers and packaging houses, sitting between basic chemical makers and the fabs. Its 2026 acquisition of the Heraeus Epurio semiconductor chemicals line integrated it backward into synthesizing high-purity organic intermediates: photoacid generators (PAGs), photoinitiators, monomers and crosslinkers. Those intermediates go into its own formulations and are also sold to other resist and materials makers. The company now covers synthesis, formulation and production under one roof. ### Customer types - Integrated device manufacturers and leading-edge logic and memory fabs. The materials are used in i-line, KrF, ArF, ArF immersion and EUV lithography. - Foundries and OSATs running wafer-level and panel-level packaging, 3D integration, fan-out and thin-wafer handling. - Compound semiconductor, MEMS and LED makers. - Resist and specialty chemical formulators, who buy PAGs and photoinitiators from the acquired Dayton business. - Universities, national labs and consortia. - Industrial, municipal and environmental-monitoring customers of the smart devices business. ### End-markets Logic and memory (including 3D NAND and advanced DRAM), advanced packaging for AI and high-performance computing, compound semiconductors and power devices, MEMS and sensors, displays and LEDs, printed and flexible hybrid electronics, and water and air quality monitoring. ### Independent characterization Brewer Science is a niche, technology-led formulator that holds an outsized position in its specialty. Industry studies consistently name it, together with Nissan Chemical (its licensee) and Merck, as one of the three main suppliers of bottom and top anti-reflective coatings, a group that together holds roughly three-quarters of that market. Its second engine is temporary bonding materials for advanced packaging. Demand there is rising sharply with chiplets, high-bandwidth memory and the need to thin wafers below 10 µm. The company's distinctive traits are its private, employee-owned structure, its rural Missouri manufacturing base, a long record of sustainability certification, and a strategy shift since 2024 toward vertical integration and U.S. supply-chain security. Its main structural limits are its small size relative to its rivals and its dependence on a few very large Asian fab customers.

Tri Chemical Laboratories makes ultra-high-purity specialty chemicals for semiconductor front-end processing. It sells deposition precursors for CVD and ALD, dry-etching gases and ion-implantation and diffusion materials, at purities of 6N (99.9999%) and above. It runs a high-mix, low-volume model with roughly 2,000 catalogued chemicals. Batches range from grams for R&D samples to tonnes for volume supply, and the company also designs specialised containers, runs contract synthesis and offers film-formation testing. Hafnium- and zirconium-based high-k precursors are its signature franchise. They are used in DRAM capacitor dielectrics, and the company patented the HAC deposition process. Silicon semiconductors made up 95% of FY1/2026 sales of ¥23.88 billion, and 81% of sales went to users outside Japan. China and Taiwan are now the two largest end-markets. The business earns operating margins of 25% or more and carries an equity ratio near 77%. It also receives equity-method income from SK Tri Chem, its Korean precursor joint venture with the SK group. The company is a small but technologically entrenched supplier sitting beneath global chemical majors in advanced memory and logic materials. --- ### What the company does The group develops, manufactures and sells high-purity chemical compounds used in semiconductor wafer processing. Its annual securities report describes the business as a single segment: "high-purity chemical compounds for semiconductor and other manufacturing, and associated services". The products are consumed in three front-end process families: **Deposition (CVD/ALD):** Precursors that are vaporised and reacted to lay down thin films. These include high-k dielectrics for DRAM capacitors and logic gates, metal and barrier-metal films such as titanium-, tantalum- and tungsten-based layers, electrode materials, low-k dielectrics and silicon-containing films. **Dry etching:** High-purity gases that selectively remove material. The company's history in etching goes back to boron trichloride, which it began supplying in 1983. It also makes hydrogen bromide through H.B.R., its joint venture with Japan Air Liquide, and new etching materials for high-aspect-ratio 3D NAND and advanced logic. **Ion implantation and diffusion:** Dopant source materials used to form transistors and diodes inside the wafer. Outside silicon semiconductors, the company keeps its legacy franchises in optical-fibre preform materials and dopants, compound- and oxide-semiconductor materials, solar-cell materials, hard-coating precursors (TiN and SiC coatings for tools), catalysts and special reagents. ### Business and revenue model Revenue is almost entirely product sales of chemical materials. Value-added services are sold alongside the products and are not reported separately. They include container design and sale, cylinder and line cleaning, small-lot filling, solution and dilution-gas preparation, contract synthesis, and contract experiments such as ALD, thermal-CVD and plasma-CVD film-formation tests, purity and impurity analysis and thermal-stability testing. There are no subscription or licensing revenue streams in the consolidated accounts. However, the company's HAC process patents underpin the Korean affiliate SK Tri Chem, and returns from that affiliate arrive as equity-method income and dividends: ¥1,277 million of equity-method profit in FY1/2026, against operating profit of ¥5,902 million. The model depends on qualification. Once a precursor is written into a customer's process recipe at a given technology node, switching suppliers requires requalification. That makes volumes sticky over the life of a node. In return, the company must continually develop and get new materials adopted as nodes migrate. ### Value-chain position and customers | Customer (FY1/2026) | Sales (¥M) | Share of sales (%) | Role | |---|---|---|---| | TOPCO Scientific Co., Ltd. (Taiwan) | 5,294 | 22.2 | Taiwanese distributor serving Taiwan's foundry and memory fabs | | Japan Air Liquide G.K. | 3,456 | 14.5 | Industrial-gas major acting as a channel; also TCLC's partner in H.B.R. | | Changxin Xinqiao Memory Technologies, Inc. (China) | 2,589 | 10.8 | DRAM manufacturer within the CXMT group | TCLC sits upstream of the wafer fabs. It buys inorganic and organometallic raw materials (hafnium, zirconium and other metal compounds, halides and solvents), synthesises and purifies them, packages them in specification containers and ships them directly or through distributors. Its customers are memory and logic chipmakers, foundries, research institutes and universities. A large share of revenue passes through intermediaries. In FY1/2026 the three customers that each exceeded 10% of sales were: **TOPCO Scientific Co., Ltd. (Taiwan):** Sales (¥M): 5,294; Share of sales (%): 22.2; Role: Taiwanese distributor serving Taiwan's foundry and memory fabs **Japan Air Liquide G.K:** Sales (¥M): 3,456; Share of sales (%): 14.5; Role: Industrial-gas major acting as a channel; also TCLC's partner in H.B.R. **Changxin Xinqiao Memory Technologies, Inc. (China):** Sales (¥M): 2,589; Share of sales (%): 10.8; Role: DRAM manufacturer within the CXMT group Concentration is not new. At its 2007 IPO, Japan Air Gases (now Japan Air Liquide) accounted for 21.3% of sales and TOPCO Scientific for 16.1%. ### End-markets In FY1/2026, memory devices took ¥13.3 billion of silicon-semiconductor sales (58.8%), logic devices ¥8.2 billion (36.0%) and other devices ¥1.2 billion (5.2%). DRAM is the main memory exposure through high-k capacitor precursors, and 3D NAND is a growing target for new etching materials. Logic demand is driven mainly by AI-related leading-edge foundry production in Taiwan. Non-semiconductor uses (optical fibre, coatings, solar, compound semiconductors) contributed about ¥1.2 billion, or 5%. ### Company self-description and independent characterisation The company calls itself a research-and-development-driven firm that develops chemicals, application technology and functional performance for leading-edge industries. Its management philosophy is to "contribute to the development of advanced technology through science and technology and to create 'yutori' (room to breathe) for people". Its integrated report uses the tagline "Material of Materials". It describes itself as a specialist producer of chemicals at 6N purity or above, with world-leading share in specific semiconductor materials and the ability to produce about 2,000 chemicals in high-mix, low-volume runs. Independently, the company is best seen as a niche precursor and etchant formulator with an unusually concentrated product and customer profile. High-k materials alone are roughly 48% of silicon-semiconductor sales. Its competitive moat rests on process IP (the HAC hafnium process), multi-node qualification at Asian memory and foundry leaders, and very high purity achieved in small, flexible batches. The flip side is customer concentration, heavy exposure to China and the memory cycle, and reliance on distributors. Its affiliates give it an indirect position with SK Hynix through SK Tri Chem, and it is now building local production in China through AD-Trichem.

SK trichem is South Korea's leading specialist producer of high-purity organometallic precursors, the molecules that atomic layer deposition (ALD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) tools use to grow nanometre-thin films on semiconductor wafers. It was formed in 2016 as a 65:35 joint venture between SK Group's materials arm and Japan's Tri Chemical Laboratories (TCLC). TCLC holds the core Korean patent on cyclopentadienyl-hafnium (CpHf) high-k precursors, and SK trichem is its exclusive Korean licensee. With that licence, SK trichem became the dominant supplier of hafnium- and zirconium-based high-k materials for the capacitor stack in SK hynix's advanced DRAM. Its operating margins have run at 24–46%, among the highest in Korean materials manufacturing. It is now entering a defining transition. The CpHf patent expires around the end of November 2026, SK hynix is qualifying additional suppliers, and Samsung Electronics has become a second large customer. Since late 2025 the company has sat inside SK ecoplant's semiconductor materials portfolio. ### What the company does SK trichem develops, manufactures, purifies and sells precursors for thin-film deposition in semiconductor manufacturing. A precursor is a volatile, ultra-high-purity chemical compound, usually an organometallic or organosilicon molecule. It is delivered as vapour into a deposition chamber, where it reacts on the wafer surface to form a film one atomic layer at a time (ALD) or continuously (CVD). Precursor chemistry determines film quality, step coverage in high-aspect-ratio structures, impurity levels, deposition rate and thermal budget. Precursors are therefore qualified per process node and per tool, and once qualified they are rarely changed during a node's life. The company's portfolio covers four families: **High-k precursors:** zirconium (CpZr), hafnium (CpHf) and titanium precursors for ZrO2, HfO2 and TiO2 films, used mainly as the dielectric in DRAM cell capacitors. **Silicon precursors:** BTBAS, 3DMAS, OMCTS and 4MS for SiO2 and low-k films by CVD and ALD in DRAM and 3D NAND. **Metal precursors:** for conductive and barrier films. **Related process materials:** In 2022 SK trichem was one of the suppliers SK hynix approached when it sought additional sources of the surface-protection material used before high-k deposition in the capacitor process. ### Company's own description In its group materials presentation, SK trichem describes itself as a joint venture with Tri Chemical Laboratories of Japan, a company with long experience in the precursor business. It says it is growing rapidly as Korea's No. 1 precursor specialist, with a range of semiconductor precursor products built around customer needs and stable production. It aims to become a global top precursor company by expanding into display and environmentally friendly applications of its semiconductor materials technology. SK ecoplant's 2025 sustainability report puts it more simply: SK trichem manufactures and sells precursors, including high-k, low-k and metal precursors, for which demand is rising with semiconductor scaling and the growth of stacked device structures. ### Business model and revenue model The revenue model is close to 100% product sales. SK trichem sells refined, qualified chemical product by volume under supply arrangements with chipmakers, delivered in returnable stainless-steel canisters and bulk containers. There is no subscription, service or licensing revenue of any note. Its advantage comes from a sublicensed patent position rather than from receiving royalties. TCLC owns the CpHf patent, and SK trichem holds the exclusive Korean right to practise it. A notable feature of the model is its use of outside chemistry partners. SK trichem buys some precursor intermediates, such as hafnium compounds, from Korean organometallic producers. Lake Materials signed an annual supply contract of about KRW 18 billion with SK trichem in February 2021, and UP Chemical has also supplied intermediates. SK trichem then purifies, qualifies, packages and delivers the finished product under its licence. Since 2025 it has also sold refined Hf precursor to Samsung Electronics, routed through Lake Materials as Samsung's registered vendor. ### Value-chain position SK trichem sits in the tier-1 materials layer. It sources metal halides, ligands and intermediates from chemical producers and sells finished precursors directly to memory fabs. Downstream, its films sit inside DRAM cell capacitors that end up in server, PC, mobile and AI-accelerator memory, including HBM stacks. ### Customer types and concentration The customer base is extremely concentrated. In FY2023, SK hynix's Korean entity accounted for KRW 94.5 billion and its China subsidiary for KRW 48.5 billion of total revenue of KRW 144.1 billion, together more than 99%. In FY2022 about KRW 150 billion of roughly KRW 220–227 billion in revenue came from SK hynix hafnium sales. Samsung Electronics started buying in 2025 and is reported to take about 20% of its Hf precursor needs from SK trichem. This gives SK trichem a meaningful second customer for the first time. ### End-markets served | End-market | Application of SK trichem materials | Relevance | |---|---|---| | DRAM (incl. HBM base dies and DRAM cores) | Hf/Zr/Ti high-k ALD for cell capacitors; Si precursors for gap-fill and spacer oxides | Core: most of revenue | | 3D NAND | Si precursors for SiO2 and low-k films in stacked structures | Secondary | | Logic / foundry | Silicon and metal precursors | Minor | | Display (planned) | Thin-film encapsulation and oxide precursors | Stated expansion area | **DRAM (incl. HBM base dies and DRAM cores):** Application of SK trichem materials: Hf/Zr/Ti high-k ALD for cell capacitors; Si precursors for gap-fill and spacer oxides; Relevance: Core: most of revenue **3D NAND:** Application of SK trichem materials: Si precursors for SiO2 and low-k films in stacked structures; Relevance: Secondary **Logic / foundry:** Application of SK trichem materials: Silicon and metal precursors; Relevance: Minor **Display (planned):** Application of SK trichem materials: Thin-film encapsulation and oxide precursors; Relevance: Stated expansion area ### Independent characterization SK trichem is in practice a single-product-family, single-customer-group, patent-protected materials franchise. Its economics combine very high margins with high volatility. Revenue rose 45% in 2022 and then fell 37% in 2023 with the memory downcycle and SK hynix's wafer cuts. Margins have fallen in steps from nearly 50% in 2020–2021 to 24% in 2025, as raw-material costs rose, unit prices were negotiated down and competitive pressure built ahead of patent expiry. Its strategic value now rests on three things: its incumbent qualification position in advanced DRAM nodes, which is sticky once a material is in; its position as an SK Group materials affiliate; and its ability to win Samsung and non-Korean volume after the licence moat disappears.

Huazheng New Materials is a mid-sized Chinese maker of copper-clad laminates (CCL). Its 2.8% share of the 2024 global rigid-CCL market ranked 11th worldwide (Prismark, cited in the FY2025 annual report). Around that core it has built a portfolio of semiconductor-packaging dielectrics: BT-resin packaging laminates, already in volume supply, and the CBF build-up insulation film. CBF is a domestic alternative to Ajinomoto's ABF and is being qualified at China's main IC-substrate makers. The company also makes thermal-conductive metal-base laminates, functional composites, thermoplastic honeycomb panels for logistics, and aluminium-plastic battery pouch film. After two loss-making years (FY2023–FY2024), the AI-server-driven upturn in high-speed CCL has transformed its economics. Revenue for the first nine months of 2026 reached RMB 5.61 billion (+75.5%) and attributable net profit RMB 800 million (+1,178%). Third-quarter gross margin reached 36.1%. In strategic terms the company is moving from commodity FR-4 toward high-speed CCL for AI servers and switches, and toward packaging dielectrics where supply is concentrated in Japan. This makes it one of the few listed Chinese candidates for import substitution in advanced-packaging build-up dielectrics. --- ### Company self-description (FY2025 annual report) The company describes its business as the design, research, development, production and sale of copper-clad laminates (including prepreg/bonding sheets), composite materials (functional composites and transportation/logistics composites) and film materials. Its products hold China CQC and US UL certification and comply with EU REACH and RoHS. They serve 5G communications, servers, data centres, semiconductor packaging, new-energy vehicles, smart home appliances, medical equipment, rail transit and green logistics. Under China's national industry classification (GB/T 4754-2017) the company falls in "C3985 Electronic Special Materials Manufacturing"; under the CSRC classification it falls in "C39 Computer, Communication and Other Electronic Equipment Manufacturing". ### Independent characterisation Economically, Huazheng is a resin-formulation and lamination business. It buys copper foil, electronic glass fabric and resins, impregnates the reinforcement with formulated resin systems, and hot-presses the stack into laminates and prepregs. PCB fabricators and IC-substrate makers then turn these into circuit boards and package substrates. The value chain runs as follows: **Upstream:** copper foil, glass fibre yarn and fabric (including low-Dk and low-CTE glass), epoxy, PPO/PPE, hydrocarbon and BT resins, fillers (spherical silica). Raw materials make up most of the cost of goods. **Huazheng's position:** formulated laminates (CCL), prepregs, BT packaging laminates, build-up dielectric film (CBF) and resin-coated copper (CBF-RCC). **Downstream:** PCB fabricators (rigid multilayer, HDI, high-frequency RF boards), IC-substrate makers (BT and FC-BGA), then OEMs and hyperscale data-centre, telecom, automotive and consumer-electronics end users. **Revenue model.** Revenue is almost entirely product sales on purchase orders. Pricing is cost-plus and follows the market: CCL prices track copper, glass fabric and resin. The business has no subscription, licensing or service revenue of any size. "Other business" revenue (RMB 153 million in FY2025, 43.9% gross margin) includes aluminium-plastic film, materials sales and rental income from its own property. **Customer types.** Revenue comes from PCB fabricators (most CCL revenue), IC-substrate makers (BT and CBF), and OEM and brand customers who specify materials. In AI servers, switches, optical modules, base stations and automotive electronics, the end customer certifies the material and the PCB maker buys it, so "terminal certification" is the gating step the company refers to repeatedly. Composites go to consumer-electronics structural-part makers, CT-scanner makers, and truck-body, bus, RV and logistics-box assemblers. In September 2023 the company said its cooperation with Huawei covered FR-4, high-frequency, high-speed, thermal and semiconductor packaging materials for base stations, wireless, datacom, automotive, servers, PV energy and semiconductors. **End-markets.** AI servers and data-centre switching (the fastest-growing), 5G/6G base stations and antennas, automotive electronics (ADAS and domain controllers, smart cockpit, power systems, lighting, cameras), smartphones, tablets and notebooks (HDI), memory and Mini/Micro-LED packaging (BT), and green logistics (thermoplastic honeycomb). **Product mix.** CCL and thermal-conductive materials together exceed 85% of revenue (2026 placement prospectus). In H1 2026, CCL revenue was RMB 2.516 billion, reported as 86.89% of the company's revenue.

HD MicroSystems is one of the oldest and most specialized suppliers of polymer dielectrics to the semiconductor industry. It combines DuPont's Pyralin-heritage polyimide chemistry with Hitachi Chemical's resin design and photosensitive-polymer expertise in one dedicated company. Its products are liquid precursors that customers spin-coat, pattern and cure on wafers. After curing they become polyimide or PBO films that act as stress buffers, passivation layers, redistribution-layer (RDL) dielectrics, flip-chip bump insulation and temporary bonding adhesives. The portfolio covers negative-tone and positive-tone photosensitive polyimides, low-temperature-cure PBOs, non-photosensitive high-performance polyimides and temporary adhesives. These materials serve front-end passivation as well as advanced packaging for fan-in and fan-out wafer-level packaging, flip chip and 2.5D/3D heterogeneous integration. The company makes product in both Japan and the United States and supports customers from Taiwan, Korea, Japan, the US and Europe. Its main customers are leading foundries, memory makers and OSATs, including ASE, which named HDM a Best Supplier for 2025. The rapid growth of AI and high-performance-computing packaging, which needs more RDL layers, finer features and lower cure temperatures, puts HDM at one of the fastest-growing points in the semiconductor materials stack. --- **What the company does.** HD MicroSystems formulates, manufactures and sells liquid polyimide precursor solutions (polyamic acids and polyamic esters), photosensitive PBO precursors and related ancillaries, including thinners, adhesion promoters and developers, to semiconductor fabs and packaging houses. Customers apply the material by spin, spray or slit coating. They pattern it by photolithography (for photosensitive grades) or by etching through a resist mask (for non-photosensitive grades), then cure it thermally. The cured film is a permanent, heat-resistant, chemically resistant dielectric with high elongation and good adhesion. HDM also supplies heat-resistant temporary adhesives (HD3000 series) used to bond device wafers to carriers during thinning and back-side processing. **Company's own description.** HD MicroSystems calls itself a manufacturer of liquid polyimide precursor and other highly heat-resistant coating materials. It says it has helped improve the functionality and reliability of semiconductors as a leading polyimide supplier since it was set up in 1997 as a 50/50 joint venture between DuPont (now Qnity) and Hitachi Chemical (now Resonac). It also describes itself as the premier supplier of polyimide and PBO precursor chemistries engineered specifically for microelectronic applications. Its Japanese recruiting materials describe it as a dedicated maker of heat-resistant coating materials centred on DuPont-developed liquid polyimide precursors. They add that it pursues next-generation materials by combining Resonac's resin design technology with Qnity's semiconductor lithography technology. **Business model.** HDM is a pure product business. It sells formulated, specification-controlled consumables, usually by weight or volume under customer-qualified bills of materials. No subscription, licensing or service revenue mix is publicly disclosed. The company has, however, said it is prepared to out-license its flexible-substrate polyimide patents. Revenue recurs because a dielectric, once qualified into a customer's process of record, is rarely changed during a product's life. Requalification can take 12–36 months and needs reliability testing at package level. Pricing and revenue figures are not publicly disclosed. **Value-chain position.** HDM sits in the specialty-materials tier. Upstream are monomer suppliers (aromatic dianhydrides, diamines and o-aminophenols), photoactive compounds, high-purity solvents and the parents' synthesis capabilities. Downstream are: - Foundries and IDMs that apply polyimide as a final passivation or stress-buffer layer on finished wafers. This includes memory makers, where polyimide protects DRAM and NAND dies and is a building block of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stacks. - OSATs and foundry back-end operations that build multilayer RDL for fan-in WLP, fan-out WLP/PLP, flip-chip bumping and 2.5D/3D interposers. - Makers of MEMS, power devices, image sensors and displays, which use polyimides as insulation, planarization or substrate layers. **Customer types.** Leading-edge logic foundries, memory makers, OSATs (ASE named HDM a Best Supplier in 2018, 2023 and 2025), power and analog IDMs, MEMS foundries, and university and research labs (MEMS researchers commonly use HDM's PI2500 series and thinners). **End markets.** AI accelerators and HPC (2.5D/3D, chiplets, HBM), smartphones and consumer devices (fan-in/fan-out WLP), automotive and power semiconductors (high-temperature-reliable passivation), and display and flexible electronics (polyimide substrate precursors). **Independent characterization.** HDM is best seen as a focused, technology-led polymer-dielectric house with two powerful sponsors. On one side is Resonac, which describes its Semiconductor & Electronic Materials segment as the driver of about 99% of group core operating profit and markets itself as an advanced-packaging materials leader. On the other is Qnity, a USD 4.75 billion pure-play semiconductor-materials company (FY2025) with leadership in CMP, lithography materials and advanced-packaging metallization. HDM is small compared with either parent, but it holds a strategically central position: the photo-defined dielectric is the layer that defines RDL density, warpage and reliability in advanced packages. Its competitive weight comes from deep qualification at top-tier customers, a broad chemistry toolbox (negative-tone PI, positive-tone PBO, low-CTE PI, temporary adhesive) and dual-continent manufacturing. Its constraints are scale relative to diversified Japanese chemical rivals and joint-venture governance, which can slow capacity decisions.