Electron microscope, how can my country break the overseas monopoly?
The 14th China International Nanotechnology Industry Expo (abbreviated as "Nano Expo") has come to a successful conclusion amid the attention of the public. This global nanotechnology event, with 1 main report, 13 sub-forums, 1 innovation and entrepreneurship competition, and 1 new product launch conference, brought together 18 academicians in the field of nanotechnology around the world, more than 450 top expert representatives from universities, research institutes, listed companies, and well-known enterprises and institutions, shared 476 professional reports, an increase of 132 reports over the previous session, a year-on-year increase of about 33%, and attracted 9,663 guests to attend the conference.
On the occasion of this grand event, Xinshiye interviewed several outstanding companies in the domestic micro-nano manufacturing industry chain and launched a special report. This article is a transcript of Xinshiye's interview with Shu Xiang, the marketing director of Anhui Zeyou Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zeyou Technology").
Zeyou Technology
Anhui Zeyou Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 2016. It has four branches in Tongling, Anhui, Beijing, Shanghai and Dongguan. It is a high-tech company of precision instruments with completely independent intellectual property rights. The company focuses on the research of precision equipment such as scanning electron microscopes, in-situ measurement systems, step profilers, probe stations, electron beam lithography machines, etc., filling many gaps in the country's high-end precision instrument field.
Zeyou Technology's technological accumulation in the field of scientific instruments began with the unremitting efforts of two generations of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In early 2000, Bai Xuedong, a researcher at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, returned to China from Harvard University in the United States and joined the research group of Academician Wang Enge of the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences to engage in research and development related to electron microscope technology. He led the project team to complete the world's first transmission electron microscope in-situ measurement system based on scanning probe technology in 2005.
Faced with the long-term backwardness of the domestic scientific instrument industry, the research team planned to use the electron microscope in-situ measurement technology as a breakthrough point to establish a scientific instrument company. Xu Zhi, a post-80s doctoral student who was deeply involved in the research and development of the instrument, decided to undertake the transformation of related research results. During the years of R&D iteration and industrialization, the relevant technical reserves gradually matured. Xu Zhi, who was promoted to researcher, established Zeyou Technology at the end of 2016.
At the beginning of the establishment of Zeyou Technology, Xu Zhi firmly adhered to the technology development route of innovation-led, independent and controllable. The company insists on self-development of full-stack technology - from field emission electron guns to ultra-high integration electronic optical systems; from nano-precision grating scales to nanonewton force sensors; from ultra-high vacuum components to complete instruments, all independently developed. Relying on solid underlying technologies such as electronic optics and scanning probe technology, the company has successively completed the development of a number of scientific instruments such as desktop scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) and scanning tunneling microscopes (STMs). In a short period of time, Zeyou Technology's scanning electron microscope market share has remained in the top three among domestic manufacturers. With limited funds, it has developed from a laboratory into a scientific instrument company with cutting-edge technology, special products, and the ability to generate its own blood.
01
What are the company’s current flagship products? Please share more details.
The main business of Zeyou Technology is concentrated in the field of testing equipment, especially electron microscopes. The company is one of the first companies in China to focus on electron microscopes. It is completely based on independent research and development, mainly desktop electron microscopes and desktop scanning electron microscopes. Among them, the desktop tungsten filament electron microscopes have three models: ZEM15, ZEM18 and ZEM20.
Recently, the company launched the ZEM Ultra field emission desktop scanning electron microscope, the first domestically produced field emission desktop scanning electron microscope, which is equipped with a high-brightness Schottky field emission electron source and can easily acquire images with a resolution of 2 nanometers. ZEM Ultra has relatively low requirements for the installation environment, is not picky about the floor, and has no special requirements for environmental vibration, magnetic field strength, temperature and humidity. The field emission electron microscope is between the optical microscope and the traditional floor-standing scanning electron microscope. Its performance can be 80% of that of a floor-standing electron microscope. It has obvious advantages over floor-standing electron microscopes in terms of volume, floor space, cost, convenience, etc., and it is easy to operate and simple to learn, so non-professionals can quickly get started. It can operate in an ordinary laboratory environment without the need for special laboratory modifications, and can even be placed next to the production line or in a mobile carriage.
There is also the step meter. The JS series high-precision step meter independently developed by Zeyou Technology has broken the foreign monopoly with its breakthrough key technology and is at the first echelon level in the world. The key performance of the equipment includes long-stroke ultra-precision plane scanning technology with a stroke of 55mm, flatness better than 20nm, ultra-fine pressure constant control of probe pressure of 0.5~50mg, large bandwidth and large-stroke nano-micro-motion stage technology with a stroke of 80um, a resolution of 0.05nm, and a bandwidth of 10KHz. Currently, a manual version, a semi-automatic version, and a fully automatic version for factory scenarios are available.
02
What is the direction of the electron microscope industry and Zeyou Technology’s product iteration?
The development and iteration speed of electron microscopes is very fast, and the future development direction is concentrated in several key areas. On the one hand, electron microscopes will be further developed to support in situ research methods such as gas, liquid, heating and mechanics. On the other hand, future electron microscopes may integrate multiple characterization methods, such as scanning electron microscopes, dual-beam electron microscopes, high-throughput scanning electron microscopes, transmission electron microscopes (TEM) and energy spectrometers, forming a multifunctional comprehensive analysis platform.
Zeyou Technology has not yet made plans in the direction of dual-beam electron microscopes and high-throughput scanning electron microscopes, because their applications are more inclined towards the back end of the industrial chain. Electron beam lithography machines are the main focus of Zeyou Technology next year. Its target group overlaps with the company's current customers, and commercial promotion will be smoother. In terms of technology, it also has previous technical accumulation, and can produce more valuable and innovative products. Zeyou Technology is a leading company in the domestic independent research and development of electron beam lithography machines. We also believe that when the product comes out, it will bring surprises to everyone. After the product is gradually promoted in universities and scientific research fields, it will begin to penetrate into mature industrial markets.
03
What are the characteristics of Zeyou Technology’s customer groups?
Scanning electron microscopes are very popular products in recent years. No matter what company, as long as the inspection involves material characterization inspection, it is bound to use scanning electron microscopes. Although Zeyou Technology focuses on testing equipment products, its actual customer distribution is very wide, including semiconductors, new energy, medical and scientific research and other fields. In the current context of the entire industry pursuing cost-effectiveness, compared with imported equipment with top performance but very high prices, domestic equipment with good performance and very friendly prices is more popular. Zeyou Technology currently has a relatively complete product matrix in electron microscopes, which is a good choice for the market and enterprises.
04
What challenges does 2.5/3D advanced packaging pose to electron microscopes?
With the improvement of semiconductor packaging and process technology, the requirements for detection accuracy are getting higher and higher, which means that the performance of equipment is getting higher and higher. This is also the reason why companies such as Zeyou Technology have launched field emission transmission electron microscopes and single crystal transmission electron microscopes. Zeyou Technology puts customer needs first, and basically follows the market direction in product iteration and technical research.
At present, the company's equipment is widely used in wafer inspection and PCB inspection. Electron microscopes focus more on material characterization and inspection, and are less competent for internal inspection of 2.5/3D advanced packaging. Generally, industrial CT is used for scanning inspection, or the inspection object is cut open for cross-sectional inspection.
05
What is the localization rate of the company’s core products?
In general, the localization rate of the company's products is less than 100%, about 95%. Some vacuum pumps that are not necessary to make by themselves are imported, and the core components of the electron microscope, such as high-voltage electron guns, spotlights, objective circuit boards, and material filaments, are all domestically produced. With its deep technical accumulation and market insights in the field of electron microscopes, Zeyou Technology is steadily promoting product innovation and market expansion, and is looking forward to its new breakthroughs in the field of electron beam lithography.
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