Chinese firm says its high-end etching equipment already used in customer's 5nm chip production line

Chinese semiconductor equipment company AMEC said its high-end etching equipment has been used in its customer's 5nm chip production lines.

Gerald Yin, AMEC's chairman, and managing director, revealed the development during a presentation of its 2020 annual results on April 6.

He said the company's plasma etching equipment has been used in an international tier-one customer's manufacturing lines from 65 nm to 14 nm, 7 nm, and 5 nm and other advanced IC processing lines and advanced packaging lines.

The company's 12-inch high-end etching equipment has been used on the most advanced lines of a leading international customer and for several key steps in the processing of 5nm, sub-5nm devices, Yin said.

AMEC did not specify who this customer is, but currently, the only ones with 5nm FinFET process mass production capability in the world are TSMC and Samsung, with the former having significantly more capacity.

Plasma etchers are a key piece of equipment used in chip manufacturing to perform microscopic engraving on chips with a precision of a few thousandths to tens of thousandths of a hair's diameter.

AMEC said in February that this company had etching equipment revenue of RMB 1.289 billion ($197 million) in 2020, up about 58.49 percent year-on-year.

AMEC's revenue for MOCVD equipment in 2020 will be RMB 496 million, down about 34.47% year on year.