Key points of investment

As one of HBM's core processes, TSV drives the growth of the company's cleaning and copper plating equipment. Currently, the company's entire line of wet cleaning equipment and copper plating equipment can be used in the DRAM (high bandwidth memory HBM) process. SAPS mega-sonic single-chip cleaning equipment is used for deep hole cleaning of TSV, reducing the leakage current by 2-3 orders of magnitude; copper plating equipment is used by many major customers for copper plating of TSV. In the future, the HBM market will become a huge growth point for the company, and the company's PECVD equipment and ALD furnace tube equipment will also be used in the HBM production line in the future.

Cleaning equipment: The company's proprietary SAPS mega-sonic cleaning equipment ensures the cleaning effect in the TSV hole. Through SAPS and TEBO mega-sonic cleaning technology independently developed and protected by global intellectual property rights, the company solved the global problem of how mega-sonic energy is evenly distributed on wafers and how to achieve no damage to the graphic structure when using mega-sonic technology in integrated circuit single-chip cleaning equipment. The company's SAPS mega-sonic cleaning equipment is suitable for cleaning flat wafer surfaces and high depth-to-width ratio through-hole structures. The company's TSV cleaning equipment is mainly used in advanced packaging processes such as 2.5D/3D. There will be polymer residue in the holes in the TSV process, so you can choose to use a high-temperature sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide mixture for cleaning.

The TSV cleaning equipment has an efficient temperature control capability, which can control the temperature of the wafer surface at a high temperature of 170℃ when cleaning. After cleaning, it can also be used with the company's proprietary SAPS mega-sonic cleaning equipment to ensure the cleaning effect in the TSV hole.

Electroplating equipment: The company has received repeated orders for TSV electroplating equipment from many customers.

Semiconductor electroplating refers to the electroplating of metal ions in the electroplating solution to the surface of the wafer to form metal interconnections during chip manufacturing. As chip manufacturing processes became more and more advanced, the interconnections within the chip began to shift from traditional aluminum materials to copper materials, and semiconductor copper plating equipment was widely used. Currently, semiconductor electroplating is not limited to the deposition of copper wires, but also metals such as tin, tin-silver alloys, nickel, and gold, but copper deposition still dominates. Global semiconductor electroplating equipment core manufacturers include Fanlin Group, Applied Materials, Shengmei Shanghai, ASMPT, and TKC, etc., with a CR5 of about 73%. According to statistics from Hengzhou Chengsi, the global semiconductor electroplating equipment market is expected to grow from 4 billion yuan in 23 to 6.1 billion yuan in 30; the front-end copper plating/back-end advanced packaging sector will account for 36%/64% respectively. At present, the company has received repeated orders for TSV electroplating equipment from many customers. Starting in the second half of '23, orders for TSV electroplating equipment began, and it is expected that the market demand will remain high in 24 years.

Investment advice

We expect the company to achieve revenue of 57/78/10.7 billion yuan in 2024/2025/2026, and realized net profit of 11/16.25 billion yuan respectively. The current stock price corresponding to 2024-2026 PE is 34 times, 23 times, and 15 times, respectively, maintaining a “buy” rating.

Risk warning

Risk of uncertainty in the external environment; risk of technology iteration; risk of market development falling short of expectations; risk of downstream production expansion falling short of expectations.