[Basic Chemicals] Tracking the semiconductor wet electronic chemicals supply chain: Jianghua Micro vs. Jingrui Electric Materials vs. Greenda vs. Yoke

02 Thought 1: What are wet electronic chemicals, and how important are they? 2.1. Role and position: a key link in semiconductor manufacturing materials, with broad end-use applications As an important upstream link in the semiconductor supply chain, semiconductor materials play a critical role in chip production and manufacturing. According to the chip manufacturing process, semiconductor materials are mainly divided into manufacturing materials and packaging materials. Manufacturing materials are mainly the various materials needed to process silicon wafers or compound semiconductors into chips; packaging materials are the materials used in the packaging and dicing of finished chips. According to the latest SEMI report, the global semiconductor materials market grew 4.9% in 2020 to $55.3 billion. Among them, the mainland China market surpassed South Korea to reach $9.76 billion, up 12% year on year, jumping to second place globally. According to the latest SEMI report, in 2020 the wafer fabrication materials market was $34.9 billion, up 6.5% from 2019, accounting for about 63% of the overall semiconductor materials market. Among these, photoresists and reagents, process chemicals, and CMP polishing materials grew the most strongly. Process chemicals account for about 6% of wafer fabrication materials. Wet electronic chemicals belong to manufacturing materials within semiconductor materials. They are the "water" and "air" needed for the development of the integrated circuit industry. Wet electronic chemicals are a branch of the electronic chemicals field and are key basic chemical materials in integrated circuits. They are one of the important wafer fabrication materials, located in the materials field toward the mid-to-upstream of the electronic information industry. Downstream applications mainly include integrated circuits, display panels, and photovoltaics; end-use scenarios are mainly electronic information products such as smartphones, smart TVs, smart cars, and computers. The electronic chemical materials industry is where fine chemicals and electronic information intersect, with characteristics such as many varieties, high quality requirements, strict environmental cleanliness requirements, fast product iteration, high added value, and large capital investment. According to statistics from the Semiconductor Industry Association, at present the usage rate of domestic materials in China's semiconductor manufacturing is less than 15%, and the domestic substitution rate of semiconductor materials in advanced process nodes and advanced packaging is even lower. In the wet electronic chemicals industry discussed in this piece, some products have also achieved partial domestic substitution. 2.2. Clarifying concepts: a branch of the electronic chemicals field, wet electronic chemicals are used in microelectronics wet processes Wet electronic chemicals, also called ultra-clean high-purity reagents or process chemicals, refer to chemical reagents whose main component purity is greater than 99.99%, generally requiring impurity particle size below 0.5µm and metal impurity content below the ppm level (10-6 is ppm, 10-9 is ppb, 10-12 is ppt). They are chemical reagents whose impurity ions and particle counts meet strict requirements, and are one of the important wafer fabrication materials. Wet electronic chemicals are a branch of the electronic chemicals field: various liquid chemical materials used in microelectronics and optoelectronics wet process steps (mainly wet etching, cleaning, development, stripping, etc.). According to composition and application process, wet electronic chemicals can be divided into general wet electronic chemicals and functional wet electronic chemicals. General wet electronic chemicals are generally single-component, single-function liquid electronic chemicals used in large quantities, such as acids, bases, and organic solvents. Functional wet electronic chemicals are chemicals that achieve special functions through compounding to meet special process requirements in manufacturing, such as strippers, developers, etchants, and cleaning solutions.