China's largest chipmaker, SMIC, is conducting trials of an immersion deep-ultraviolet (DUV) lithography scanner made by Shanghai Yuliangsheng Technology, a step toward building a local wafer fabrication equipment industry and reducing dependence on Western suppliers. The project, codenamed "Mount Everest", is tied through investors and collaborators to SiCarrier. It is reportedly assembled mostly from domestic parts, while a handful of components still come from abroad. SMIC is likely at an early testing stage, achieving first light or initial patterning rather than running the scanner inside a full production flow. The U.S. Commerce Department added Yuliangsheng to its entity list in late 2024, which gives the effort strategic urgency and helps explain the push to localize the remaining supply chain and qualify the machine for factory use.

The Yuliangsheng system is described as an immersion DUV scanner aimed at 28 nm class processes and similar in capability to older Twinscan designs from around 2008. In theory, chipmakers can push such tools toward 7 nm or even 5 nm technologies by using multi-step patterning, but that route increases process complexity, reduces yields, and requires much tighter overlay control and process stability. All of SMIC's current 7 nm and 5 nm nodes are manufactured using quad-patterning, which requires the scanner to perform as many as four laser shots to embed its print onto silicon, all to achieve a more modern node. SMIC is also expected to continue relying on ASML equipment for its most advanced products, while domestic tools mature. The company plans to begin integrating qualified local DUV machines into production lines as soon as 2027. Even if the current trials succeed, closing the technological gap to the world's leading lithography vendors and achieving competitive sub-10 nm yields will take several more years of redesign, qualification, and scaling.

The world's AI arms race is reshaping the global semiconductor supply chain. To reduce dependence on foreign computing, China is looking to triple its domestic AI accelerator output. According to anonymous sources close to the Financial Times, China has developed a plan to significantly scale its manufacturing operations. An entire semiconductor fabrication facility, with unknown total wafer output and node specifications, is being dedicated to Huawei for the production of its Ascend accelerators, and is scheduled to start production by the end of the year. Two additional plants will come online next year. SMIC, China's premier semiconductor manufacturer, has been supporting Huawei's efforts, but it appears that Huawei has decided to initiate its own independent production with SMIC's assistance.

We reported earlier that, out of frustration with SMIC's low output capacity, Huawei has secured the entire silicon production process, from sourcing materials and chemicals to wafer fab equipment and chip-making equipment, as well as actual chip design. A few companies, all backed by Huawei with funding and research, are the backbone of this operation. SiCarrier, which we reported on back in March, supplies optical and X-ray inspection tools, atomic force microscopes, and alignment systems for metrology; gas-based and atomic layer deposition tools for film coating; plasma etchers for patterning; rapid thermal processors for material tuning; and electrical testing platforms for reliability screening. SwaySure and Fujian Jinhua supply memory chips, Si'En and Pehgjin supply power chips, and PWX and PST deal with logic.

According to the Financial Times, gathering data from satellite images and industry intelligence, Huawei has endeavored to develop a domestic AI supply chain to bypass foreign tech restriction influence. In Guanlan, China, Huawei started developing a complete facility for manufacturing semiconductors on 7 nm technology for its custom processors. Out of frustration with SMIC's low output capacity, Huawei has secured the entire silicon production, from sourcing materials, chemicals, and wafer fab equipment to chip-making equipment to actual chip design. According to Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis, "Huawei has embarked on an unprecedented effort to develop every part of the AI supply chain domestically from wafer fabrication equipment to model building," adding, "We have never seen one company attempt to do everything before."

It is also reported that Huawei's rivals in silicon manufacturing, SMIC and SMEE, have deployed engineers to help Huawei develop its own manufacturing flow. A few companies, all backed by Huawei with funding and research, are the backbone of this operation. SiCarrier, which we reported on back in March, supplies optical and X-ray inspection tools, atomic force microscopes, and alignment systems for metrology; gas-based and atomic layer deposition tools for film coating; plasma etchers for patterning; rapid thermal processors for material tuning; and electrical testing platforms for reliability screening. SwaySure and Fujian Jinhua supply memory chips, Si'En and Pehgjin supply power chips, and PWX and PST deal with logic.

SiCarrier, a Huawei-backed Chinese semiconductor tool manufacturer, has launched a comprehensive suite of semiconductor manufacturing tools at this year's Semicon China. These tools are strategically essential to China's semiconductor self-sufficiency and a major step towards competitive nodes from the mainland. The new lineup spans multiple categories: optical inspection, deposition, etch, metrology, and electrical performance testing. Until now, Chinese chipmakers often depended on older-generation foreign equipment, but SiCarrier's new lineup promises domestic alternatives tailored to modern manufacturing processes. The tools address every stage of semiconductor fabrication, from inspecting microscopic defects to etching intricate circuits.

For quality control, SiCarrier's Color Mountain series functions like a high-powered microscope, using intense lighting and advanced imaging algorithms to examine both sides of silicon wafers for flaws as small as dust particles. Complementing this, the Sky Mountain series ensures the perfect alignment of circuit layers, which need perfect stacking, using diffraction-based measurements (analyzing light patterns) and direct image comparisons. The New Mountain suite combines specialized tools to analyze materials at the atomic level. One standout is the atomic force microscope (AFM), which maps surface topography with a nanoscale "finger," while X-ray techniques (XPS, XRD, XRF) act like forensic tools, revealing the chemical composition, crystal structure, and elemental makeup.