--- title: "Making chip gear is the first step. Scaling it is China’s next big test" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/297637293.md" description: "Chinese chipmakers are aggressively pursuing local equipment sourcing, with targets like 80% localization for new fabs. This shift pressures domestic toolmakers to transition from technical viability to commercial reliability and scalability. While companies like Naura and AMEC report significant revenue growth, the industry faces challenges in ensuring consistency across high-volume production. Domestic market share is projected to rise from 23% in 2025 to 39% by 2030, driven by expanding wafer fabrication spending and capacity increases at major players like YMTC and ChangXin." datetime: "2026-09-01T10:32:02.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/297637293.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/297637293.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/297637293.md) generator: "portal-rs" --- # Making chip gear is the first step. Scaling it is China’s next big test Chinese chipmakers are setting increasingly aggressive targets to source production equipment locally, adding pressure on domestic toolmakers to come up with machines that are reliable in the exacting environment of high-volume wafer production. Several new wafer fabrication plants, or fabs, in the country were setting explicit localisation targets, according to Jie Chen, chairman of Britech Semiconductor Equipment (Shanghai) Corp, who spoke at an industry conference in eastern China’s Wuxi on Monday. “One large customer here in Wuxi is aiming for 80 per cent localisation of equipment at its new fab,” Chen said. Flash memory maker Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC) highlights the speed of this transition. Before being targeted under US export restrictions in 2022, American-made tools accounted for about half of YMTC’s equipment, the company said. Now, it is working towards building a fab that relies mostly on domestic machinery. However, industry leaders caution that the equipment sector must now transition from technical viability to commercial reliability, a shift Chen described as moving from a “zero-to-one” phase into a “2.0 era”. “Making one machine is easy, but can five machines be the same as the first? What about 10, 50 or 100?” Chen said, noting that fabs required absolute consistency across multiple chambers and machines. He added that the industry’s “final exam” would come when Chinese toolmakers could win top overseas clients without home-turf advantage. Beijing’s drive to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers extends beyond chipmakers to upstream materials suppliers. Xian ESWIN Material Technology, China’s largest manufacturer of unprocessed 12-inch silicon wafers, told the conference that domestic machinery made up 52 per cent of its production equipment as of June, up from 42 per cent in 2024. The company targets 58 per cent by 2027. These ambitious mandates are delivering windfalls to Chinese toolmakers. Naura Technology Group, China’s largest chip-equipment maker, last week reported first-half revenue growth of about 25 per cent year on year. The company competes against global leaders Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron in the equipment sectors of deposition, etching, thermal processing and cleaning. Etching tool producer Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) grew revenue by nearly 35 per cent, while deposition specialist Piotech – a challenger to Applied Materials, Lam Research and ASM International – posted a sales jump of almost 50 per cent during the same period. Domestic substitution is increasingly shifting from simply replacing foreign tools to directly benchmarking against leading overseas suppliers. Liu Erzhuang, chairman and CEO of Productive Technologies Company, said domestic vendors must compete on productivity, not just technical capability. “Technical success is not the final success,” Liu said. “Only when the technology succeeds commercially and in the market can it truly scale.” Productive Technologies said its wet-cleaning platform could process as many as 850 wafers per hour with 16 chambers, matching the throughput of comparable overseas equipment. Domestic suppliers accounted for about 23 per cent of semiconductor equipment sold in China in 2025, a figure projected to hit 39 per cent by 2030, according to market research firm Yole Group. China already accounted for roughly one-third of global equipment demand currently, Yole’s corporate vice-president Gary Huang said. Domestic suppliers are gaining share in a market that is itself continuing to expand rapidly. Goldman Sachs expects China’s wafer-fabrication equipment spending to rise from about US$44.3 billion this year to US$53 billion in 2027 and US$60.7 billion in 2028. That expansion is particularly pronounced in memory. Goldman expects DRAM capacity at ChangXin Memory Technologies to more than double from about 270,000 wafers per month in 2026 to 665,000 by 2030. YMTC, meanwhile, is expected to raise its NAND capacity from about 200,000 wafers per month to around 300,000 after a new Wuhan fab ramps up, according to China Merchants Securities. ### Related Stocks - [002371.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/002371.CN.md) - [688012.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/688012.CN.md) - [688825.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/688825.CN.md) - [AMAT.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/AMAT.US.md) - [8035.JP](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/8035.JP.md) - [LRCX.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/LRCX.US.md) - [GS.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/GS.US.md) - [600999.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/600999.CN.md) - [06099.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/06099.HK.md) - [TOELY.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/TOELY.US.md) - [W4VR.SG](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/W4VR.SG.md) ## Related News & Research - [CXMT starts LPDDR6 mass production for Xiaomi’s upcoming 18 Fold](https://longbridge.com/en/news/297471566.md) - [China’s AMEC unveils 6 chip-making machines in a day in self-reliance boost](https://longbridge.com/en/news/297760380.md) - [CXMT Corp’s sales jump 10-fold amid AI demand](https://longbridge.com/en/news/297350678.md) - [China’s CXMT posts massive 870% revenue surge as ‘aggressive expansion’ pays off](https://longbridge.com/en/news/297324292.md) - [Key facts: AAPL Q3 $109.4B; Ternus CEO; iPhone Pro Push India](https://longbridge.com/en/news/297393571.md) --- > **Disclaimer: This article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice.**