By Che Pan, Julie Zhu, Fanny Potkin and Eduardo Baptista
BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) -SiCarrier, a Chinese chip equipment maker with close links to Huawei, is seeking $2.8 billion in its maiden fundraising round, two people familiar with the plans said, as the startup chases more clients and clout.
SiCarrier was until recently little known, but it has become the most talked-about company in Chinese semiconductor circles this year as the breadth of its planned product range and ambitions emerges.
Founded in 2021 and owned by the Shenzhen city government, SiCarrier is largely seen as a Huawei supplier. But it wants to become the leading domestic provider of chipmaking equipment in China, surpassing Naura and Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment China (AMEC), according to four people with knowledge of its goals.
It is a prime example of how U.S. restrictions on exports of chipmaking gear and advanced semiconductors to China, while curbing tech progress in the world’s second-largest economy in some ways, have spurred Chinese firms to take up President Xi Jinping’s call to evolve into a self-sufficient domestic chip industry.
The government of Shenzhen, a tech metropolis in southern China, is looking to sell roughly 25% of a SiCarrier unit and is after an 80 billion yuan ($11 billion) valuation, said one of the sources, adding the fundraising could conclude in the coming weeks.
The source also said the unit does not include SiCarrier’s lithography assets. Reuters was not able to learn the name of the unit.
The proceeds will mostly go towards research, and Chinese state-owned firms, state funds, as well as domestic venture capital and private equity funds have expressed interest in investing, said two sources. It will likely be one of the largest yuan-denominated fundraisings by a Chinese company this year.
Reuters spoke to 10 people with knowledge of SiCarrier’s business for this article. All declined to be identified as the company has not publicly disclosed its plans.
SiCarrier, which was slapped with U.S. export controls late last year due to its close ties to Huawei, did not respond to requests for comment.
Huawei said it was not affiliated with SiCarrier. The Shenzhen government also did not respond to requests for comment.
BIG SPLASH
SiCarrier spent its initial years largely silent about its plans but made a splash at this year’s Semicon China trade fair in March, drawing large crowds with a catalogue of 30 machines ranging from etching tools to inspection equipment named after Chinese mountains. Its lithography systems were, however, not on display.
While executives at the time did not go into detail about the readiness of its products, two sources said most of SiCarrier’s line-up is still under development and is not production-ready.
Chipmaking equipment usually undergoes long testing and validation processes before being adopted by customers.
“Considering the brief period since their establishment, it seems nearly impossible for them to have developed such complex machinery and completed the extensive verification process required,” Bernstein analysts also wrote in a March client note.
Even if SiCarrier makes rapid progress over the next couple of years, it is likely to take far longer before Chinese chip equipment providers make a serious dent in foreign dominance of the field.
Last year, domestically made wafer fabrication equipment accounted for just 11.3% of total purchases by China, according to data from consultancy TechInsights. China has spent $128 billion on such equipment since 2020, when the U.S. started curbing chip sector exports, the data shows.
LOFTY AMBITIONS
A Reuters review of 92 Chinese patents filed by Shenzhen SiCarrier Industry Machines and its parent company Shenzhen SiCarrier Technologies between October 2022 and March this year shows the group wants to be a one-stop shop for all equipment to make a chip, preparing a far more ambitious product line-up than Naura or AMEC.
The patents, searched with U.S. firm Anaqua’s AcclaimIP database and verified by Reuters, range from wafer measurement devices to etching systems to deposition systems that layer thin films on wafers to give them electrical characteristics. That puts SiCarrier into competition with firms such as KLA, Lam Research from the U.S. and Tokyo Electron.
SiCarrier is also investing in AI-driven wafer defect recognition, cutting-edge tech that aims to improve chip yields.
Measurement and inspection tools hold the most potential for SiCarrier to make its mark because no dominant player in these areas has emerged in China, according to two of the sources.
Other patents include components for deep ultraviolet technology (DUV) lithography systems and multi-patterning chip-making techniques that SiCarrier has touted as a solution to solving China’s lack of access to top-end extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tools.
But multi-patterning, which replaces optical lithography with various atomic-layer etching and deposition steps, has its sceptics. The technique, introduced by U.S. chip giant Intel in the 2010s and used by Taiwan’s TSMC for its first generation of 7-nanometre chips, is prone to errors and lower yields due to increased manufacturing steps, according to Dan Hutcheson, vice chair at TechInsights.
WARY OF HUAWEI LINKS
According to industry executives, SiCarrier was formed out of a Huawei unit that made semiconductor tools. And while some Chinese foundries have purchased SiCarrier equipment to show support for the government venture, there has also been reluctance to use the products due to concerns that trade secrets could be leaked to Huawei, three of the sources said.
Chip equipment manufacturers work closely with foundries to test, validate and improve their products, and customer reticence could impede how quickly SiCarrier makes progress.
The companies’ ties run deep with Huawei seconding several staff members to SiCarrier from its HiSilicon chip design unit, according to one source.
“The biggest problem is not the product, but that when customers use its equipment, Huawei might know their process parameters,” said another source.
“If it wants to grow big, it needs to separate from Huawei completely, but even so, it will still take several years to validate and iterate the products.”
($1 = 7.2480 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Che Pan, Julie Zhu, Fanny Potkin and Eduardo Baptista; Additional reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Brenda Goh and Edwina Gibbs)
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