Nanda Optoelectronics: Self-developed ArF photoresist products successfully passed customer certification

On December 17, Nanda Optoelectronics released an announcement regarding the passing of customer certification for its ArF photoresist products, stating that the ArF photoresist products independently developed by the company's holding subsidiary Ningbo Nanda Optoelectronic Materials Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ningbo Nanda Optoelectronics") have recently successfully passed customer usage certification.

The announcement shows that "ArF photoresist product development and industrialization" is a key research project undertaken by Ningbo Nanda Optoelectronics under the national "02 Special Project". The certification of this product marks a key breakthrough in the "ArF photoresist product development and industrialization" project, becoming the first domestically produced ArF photoresist to pass product verification in China, laying a solid foundation for the full completion of the project goals.

The certification evaluation report shows that "this certification selected the control gate in the customer's 50nm flash memory product for verification. The performance of Ningbo Nanda Optoelectronics' ArF photoresist product tests met the process specification requirements and the yield results met the standards."

ArF photoresist materials are important key materials in the field of integrated circuit manufacturing, and can be used in integrated circuit manufacturing processes at 90nm-14nm or even 7nm technology nodes. They are widely used in high-end chip manufacturing (such as logic chips, AI chips, 5G chips, large-capacity storage and cloud computing chips, etc.).

The market prospects of ArF photoresist are better than expected. With the rapid development of the domestic IC industry, the acceleration of independent innovation and localization, and the application of advanced process technology, the use of photoresist will be greatly boosted.

The industrialization significance of this customer certification is great. The 50nm flash memory technology platform used in this verification can meet the 45nm-90nm lithography requirements in terms of feature size. The line process can meet the 65nm-90nm lithography requirements in terms of feature size. The photoresist of this process platform is representative in the industry.

Nanda Optoelectronics said that the ArF photoresist products have passed the customer's certification, and the product sales and service agreement with the customer is still under negotiation. In particular, the complexity of ArF photoresist determines that there are still many process risks in its stable mass production stage, which requires not only technical research, but also process improvement and perfection in application, which will determine the mass production scale and economic benefits of ArF photoresist.