Recently, six market research institutes each updated their forecasts for the semiconductor market growth rate in 2024, with growth rates ranging from 13% to 20%.
The Zhitong Finance App learned that Everbright Securities released a research report saying that 2024 will be a year of semiconductor recovery. Among them, the growth of memory chips, EUV photoresists, and nanosilver is worth watching. In the direction of memory chips, it is recommended to focus on Lianrui New Materials (688300.SH), etc.; the EUV photoresist direction. According to the latest research progress at Tsinghua University, it is possible to use the technical route of zirconia-based photoresist. It is recommended to focus on the zirconium metal listed company Oriental Zirconium (002167.SZ); for nanosilver, it is recommended to focus on Western Materials (002149.SZ) (currently the nanosilver wire developed by the company is mainly used in flexible screens; it is not clear whether it can actually be applied to power semiconductor packaging).
Incidents:
Recently, six market research institutes each updated their forecasts for the semiconductor market growth rate in 2024, with growth rates ranging from 13% to 20%.
▍ The main views of Everbright Securities are as follows:
2024 will be the year of recovery for semiconductors, with memory chips growing the fastest.
According to statistics and forecasts released by WSTS in November 2023.11, the overall size of the semiconductor market will decrease by 9.4% in 2023, while the overall size of the semiconductor market will increase by 13.1% in 2024. Among them, the size of the memory chip industry is expected to soar to about 130 billion US dollars, a significant increase of more than 40% compared to the previous year.
The rapid growth of memory chips will lead to an increase in demand for low-α spherical silicon/spherical aluminum.
HBM is a type of memory chip. Due to its advantages such as high bandwidth, high capacity, and low power consumption, it has broken through memory capacity and bandwidth bottlenecks, and has received great attention from storage giants. According to the 2023-11-24 research report “Low-α spherical aluminum/spherical silicon materials are expected to significantly benefit from the major development of advanced packaging - HBM concept stock change review”, the rapid growth of HBM will lead to an increase in demand for low-α spherical silicon/spherical aluminum. It is expected that by 2025, the market space for low-α spherical silicon/spherical aluminum will be 1.66/2.91 times that of 2022, respectively.
The three types of semiconductor wafer manufacturing materials with low localization rates in 2023 are: photoresists, mask plates, and precursors.
In 2023, the overall localization rate of semiconductor wafer manufacturing materials in China is 20%-30%, of which the localization rate of electronic specialty gases and target materials is about 30-40%; the overall localization rate of silicon wafers, wet electronic chemicals, and CMP consumables is about 20-30%. However, the localization rate of photoresists is still low. Among them, the localization rate of EUV photoresists is 0, and the localization rate of ArF photoresists is only 1%; in addition, the localization rate of mask plates and precursor materials is also relatively low.
EUV photoresists are currently the most cutting-edge technical problem, and metal-based photoresists with zirconia as the main component are currently undergoing rapid research progress.
The types of EUV photoresists that have been reported so far mainly include polymer-based photoresists, organic molecular glass photoresists, and metal-based photoresists. Due to their small size, high EUV absorption rate, and strong corrosion resistance, metal-based photoresists have been studied more extensively. In October 2023, researcher He Xiangming and Associate Professor Xu Hong of Tsinghua University developed an extremely sensitive zirconia hybrid photoresist system. Its sensitivity is almost two orders of magnitude higher than polymer-based photoresist.
From 2020 to 2025, the market share of EUV photoresists will increase from less than 1% to 10%, and demand for zirconia is also expected to be driven.
According to TECHCET data, ArFi accounted for the largest share of the global semiconductor photoresist market in 2020, reaching 40%, followed by KrF accounting for 33%, and EUV accounting for less than 1%. According to Jibang Consulting's forecast, as the industry pursues chips that improve computational capabilities and energy efficiency, EUV photoresists will usher in significant growth. It is expected that by 2025, EUV photoresists will occupy 10% of the market share.
In the back-end packaging process of power semiconductors, nano silver is a material worth paying attention to.
The nano silver sintering process is a chip packaging method using nano silver paste as a conductive adhesive material. Simply put, nanosilver is used to replace metal solders such as gold and tin in traditional packaging processes. The low temperature connection, high service temperature, high connection strength, and high thermal conductivity of nano silver make it particularly suitable as a packaging material for high-power modules. Currently, the application of nanosilver for semiconductor packaging is still in its infancy, and the market space is broad.
Risk warning:
Risk of semiconductor technology route change, risk of policy changes, risk of theoretical research not being implemented, etc.