Nearly 40 Sci-Tech Innovation Board "Hard Technology" companies showcased at the global semiconductor industry's annual event

Securities Daily reporter Mao Yirong

SEMICON China 2026, the annual global semiconductor industry event, will be held in Shanghai from March 25 to 27. This edition of the exhibition, themed “Cross-Industry, Global Reach · Hearts Linked Through Core,” will bring together more than 1,500 upstream and downstream companies and attract over 180,000 professional visitors.

Securities Daily reporters noted that nearly 40 Sci-Tech Innovation Board (STAR Market) companies, including Micro/ Nano Semiconductor Equipment (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Micro/Nano”), TCP Tech Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “TCP Tech”), HSMC Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “HSMC”), and GloChip Electronic Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “GloChip”), among others, will take the stage as a group with heavyweight products and the latest achievements. Through dense new product launches and demonstrations of cutting-edge technologies, they will showcase to the world China’s semiconductor industry’s innovation strength and complete ecosystem.

Focus on Three Major Core Trends

Reporters noted that at the opening keynote speech of this exhibition, Feng Li, President of SEMI (Semiconductor Industry Association) China, mentioned that driven by AI computing power and global digitalization-based economic growth, the global semiconductor industry has entered a historic moment. The “chip era,” originally expected to reach the milestone of one trillion dollars in 2030, is expected to arrive early by late 2026. At the same time, the three major trends in the semiconductor industry in 2026 include industrial upgrading driven by AI computing power, a storage revolution, and technologies such as advanced packaging.

These three high-growth, high-sentiment sectors are precisely the core areas currently being laid out by semiconductor companies on the STAR Market. At present, the STAR Market has gathered 128 semiconductor listed companies, accounting for 60% of all A-share semiconductor companies. Covering the full industrial chain—including design, manufacturing, equipment, and materials—the market has formed a development pattern characterized by leading players, a complete chain, and coordinated innovation, with IPO financing exceeding RMB 300 billion.

Among them, in the AI computing power segment, companies including CICC (Cambricon) Technology Co., Ltd., Hygon Information Technology Co., Ltd., Moore Threads Intelligent Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd., and Mulan Semiconductor (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., among others, have been brought together. In the storage segment, Shenzhen Proberion Storage Technology Co., Ltd., which has benefited from the industry recovery and improving performance, is seeing its domestic storage foundry leader—ChangXin Technology Group Co., Ltd.—progress with its STAR Market IPO application having been accepted. Advanced packaging is also a key technical direction that STAR Market packaging and testing as well as equipment companies are collectively betting on.

Dense Launches of New Products

At the exhibition site, the new product releases from leading STAR Market equipment companies are particularly striking, showing a strong momentum shifting from breakthrough at single points toward leapfrogging across multiple categories and toward platform-based capabilities.

As a benchmark in domestically produced etching equipment, Micro/Nano unveiled four new products at this exhibition covering key processes for both silicon-based and compound semiconductors, becoming a focal point throughout the venue. This also further enriches the company’s product portfolio and systematic solutions in etching equipment, thin-film deposition equipment, and core intelligent components, continuously strengthening the foundation for platform-based development.

In recent years, TCP Tech has successfully expanded into the advanced packaging field by building on its deep accumulation in thin-film deposition. The 3DIC series new products on display at this exhibition include multiple products such as molten bond (melt bonding) and laser debonding, with a focus on advanced logic chip Chiplet heterogeneous integration, three-dimensional stacking, and HBM-related applications.

In the wet-process equipment sector, AMEC (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “AMEC Shanghai”) reorganized its product line combination and refreshed its brand, formally launching a new product line architecture called “AMEC Si Core Plate.” Huaai Qingke Co., Ltd. brought to the show its full range of advanced semiconductor equipment and process integration solutions, including an ion implantation equipment with a large beam stream iPUMA-LE in the ion implantation field, where the domestic localization rate is relatively low.

In the metrology and quality inspection track, Shenzhen Smart Scanning Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Smart Scanning”) exhibited a total of 16 semiconductor quality control equipment models and 3 intelligent software packages this time, including new product series such as electron-beam critical dimension measurement equipment, optical diffraction overlay precision measurement equipment, wafer flatness measurement equipment, and high-aspect-ratio etching structure measurement equipment, among others.

In the EDA segment, GloChip Electronic, the first EDA listed company in China, officially released the P1800 series precision source measurement units based on SMU technology developed with independent intellectual property rights. This means the company’s semiconductor device characterization testing business has formed a complete product line consisting of benchtop instruments, electrical parameter testing, low-frequency noise testing, professional electrical test software, and parameter testing systems.

In the materials sector, Xi’an Yiswei Materials Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Xi’an Yiswei”) brought a complete series of 12-inch wafer products and end-to-end process capabilities to the show. Its high-quality products can be widely applied to core areas such as high-performance memory chips, advanced logic chips, analog chips, and image sensor chips, meeting emerging market demand for AI computing power, intelligent driving, data centers, and more.

Breakthrough Through Full-Industrial-Chain Coordination

With SEMICON China 2026’s annual grand event proceeding smoothly, STAR Market semiconductor companies, leveraging tangible technological breakthroughs and coordinated collaboration across the industrial chain, have showcased to the world China’s confidence and strength in the development of emerging pillar industries.

STAR Market semiconductor companies are no longer single-point breakthroughs driven only by each party “fighting on their own.” Instead, they are demonstrating a positive trend toward full industrial chain “coordinated operations,” moving toward integrating technologies across the entire chain.

On the manufacturing end, wafer foundries such as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) and HSMC maintain high utilization of production capacity and reasonable capital expenditures, with sales revenue staying in the leading tier globally among pure-play wafer foundry enterprises.

On the equipment end, companies such as Micro/Nano, TCP Tech, AMEC Shanghai, Smart Scanning, Beijing Yitang Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd., Shenyang Fu Chuang Precision Equipment Co., Ltd., and others have achieved technology benchmarking against international leading firms in areas including etching, thin-film deposition, cleaning, metrology and quality inspection, heat treatment, and precision components, respectively.

On the materials end, companies such as Xi’an Yiswei, Shanghai Silicon Industry (SIPG) Group Co., Ltd., Shandong Tianyue Advanced Technology Co., Ltd., and Guangdong Huate Gas Co., Ltd. have achieved breakthroughs in “choke-point” areas such as large silicon wafers, silicon carbide substrates, electronic specialty gases, and more, strongly supporting the construction of a localized semiconductor manufacturing supply chain system in China.

Mergers and Acquisitions Re-energize Industrial Momentum

Enabled by the “eight rules for the STAR Market” and the “six rules for M&A,” mergers and acquisitions and reorganization have become an important pathway for STAR Market companies to rapidly acquire technological capabilities and achieve industrial “strengthening the chain, supplementing the chain, and extending the chain.”

According to statistics, since the release of the “eight rules for the STAR Market,” as of March 26, the STAR Market has seen over 50 disclosed M&A deals in the semiconductor industry, with disclosed transaction amounts exceeding RMB 70 billion. The momentum of industrial integration has been strong and fast.

At this exhibition, the progress of acquisitions and mergers by multiple participating companies has become a focal point of industry attention. Micro/Nano plans to acquire domestic high-end CMP equipment company Junxin Technology; this will fill the company’s gap in the wet-process equipment sector and accelerate its transition toward a world-class platform-based semiconductor equipment group. GloChip Electronic’s transaction to acquire RuiCheng XinWei is already in the stock exchange’s inquiry and review stage, aiming to build a complete solution for EDA and IP coordination. HSMC plans to acquire its fellow company Hualiwei from its controlling shareholder; this is both a fulfillment of the commitment made during the IPO stage to address competition in similar lines of business and a way to expand production capacity and coordinate processes, improving profitability. In addition, the transaction scheme designs for typical cases such as Shanghai Jingfeng Mingyuan Semiconductor Co., Ltd.’s acquisition of Yichong Technology also fully take into account the special nature of valuation for technology-related assets.

Industry insiders say that mergers and acquisitions and reorganization not only help listed companies become better and stronger, but also promote optimization and upgrading of the industrial ecosystem. Through mergers and acquisitions and reorganization, companies can quickly achieve technology complementarity and market expansion, moving from integrating basic resources into a new stage of technology-coordinated innovation. This is a vivid example of the STAR Market supporting the development of new-quality productive forces.