Zhongwei Company's Yin Zhiyao: Never copy foreign equipment, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"

Ask AI · How does Yin Zhiyao’s diversification strategy withstand fluctuations in the semiconductor industry?

Reporter Zhang Sainan, 21st Century Business Herald, Shanghai

Recently, Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. (688012.SH) released its 2025 performance. During the period, it achieved operating revenue of 12.385 billion yuan, up 36.62% year on year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 2.111 billion yuan, up 30.69% year on year. On the basis that its operating revenue has maintained year-on-year average growth above 35% for the past thirteen years, Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc.’s operating performance has again reached a record high.

“Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. has always stood at the forefront of advanced process technology development. It never copies or replicates the standard equipment from overseas. It has long adhered to three basic principles: ‘technological innovation,’ ‘product differentiation,’ and ‘intellectual property protection.’ As an industry-leading semiconductor equipment company, Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. sticks to a strategy that combines organic growth with epitaxial expansion. Its product coverage continues to improve, and it is steadily stepping into a new stage of diversified, platform-based, and scaled development.” On April 1, at the company’s earnings briefing held for the whole industry, Chairman Yin Zhiyao said.

In recent years, Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. has been continuously improving the quality and speed of developing new equipment products, significantly shortening the new product development cycle from the traditional 3 to 5 years to within 2 years. In 2025, the company’s R&D investment was 3.744 billion yuan, accounting for 30.2% of annual sales, far higher than the average level of 10% to 15% for companies listed on the STAR Market. The company’s product development projects cover six categories and more than twenty new pieces of equipment.

The reason it has maintained high-intensity product R&D is that Yin Zhiyao holds the strategy of “not putting all eggs in one basket.”

“I’ve been in the semiconductor field for more than forty years and I’ve witnessed seven major industry boom-and-bust cycles, so it’s very difficult to make industry predictions. Although the market generally believes that the industry will still rise in the following year, we have to always be mentally prepared. If the market goes downward, we need to have response measures. Not putting all eggs in one basket is the reason why Micron continues to develop new products,” he said.

However, regarding the current situation, he believes there are also some differences. In the past, the semiconductor market’s boom-and-bust cycles were caused by the impact of a single product. But now micro-devices have penetrated every aspect of various industries, and their applications are no longer driven by a single product. With multiple applications such as AI and autonomous driving, the overall volatility of the industry will be mitigated. Still, there will be ups and downs—especially macroeconomic changes that can affect the entire semiconductor equipment market.

“So I’ve always said that the company should achieve three-dimensional and multi-level growth. What is the third dimension? It means not only making micro-processing equipment, but using our core technologies to extend into sectors and to find some rigid, essential demand areas. That way, even if the equipment industry declines, I can use other eggs in another basket to support the company’s development,” Yin Zhiyao said.

In response to new demands in today’s market, Yin Zhiyao said he is very pleased to see the development of memory driven by AI. The company’s etching equipment orders are coming “one after another.” In his view, the technological evolution of storage products from two dimensions to three dimensions is inevitable, the market for 3D NAND will rise quickly, and Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. has already made corresponding product reserves.

Judging from product sales in 2025, the company’s thin film equipment business has seen an explosive growth, with revenue increasing by about 224.23% year on year, becoming an important new engine for the company’s performance growth. Within a short period, the company successfully developed a dozen-plus core thin-film equipment for conductors and dielectrics; with multiple products achieving both technological and market breakthroughs. It also comprehensively laid out measurement equipment, especially electron beam measurement equipment and wet processing equipment.

Yin Zhiyao further introduced the company’s progress in R&D for new products. He said that the third-generation TSV etching machine required for advanced packaging is expected to achieve a breakthrough in the market. The industry-leading position of gallium nitride-based MOCVD equipment continues to remain solid. At the same time, the company has developed four new types of MOCVD equipment, including MOCVD equipment for silicon carbide and gallium nitride power devices, as well as blue-green and red-yellow light MOCVD equipment needed for Micro LED, and they are being gradually pushed to the market. This further enriches the product system of MOCVD equipment and meets the diverse market needs of the broader semiconductor field.

Of particular note is that the company achieved a breakthrough from zero to one in large-area flat panel equipment. Using only 18 months, it successfully developed OLED 8.6th-generation line large-area PECVD equipment, meeting the ±5% thin-film thickness uniformity requirements of customer production lines, and successfully entered large-scale production line certification, thereby filling the domestic technical blank in this area.

It is understood that, as of the end of 2025, the company had accumulated more than 7,800 plasma and chemical thin-film reaction chambers, achieving mass production and large-scale repeat sales on more than 170 production lines both domestically and internationally.

In 2025, Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. also initiated the acquisition of Hangzhou Zhonggui. Yin Zhiyao said that the two sides will form significant strategic synergies, marking a key step for Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. toward “grouping” and “platformization.” Through “organic growth” and “epitaxial expansion,” within about five years the company will cover more than 60% of high-end key integrated circuit equipment and more than 70% of advanced packaging equipment, becoming a platform-based integrated circuit equipment company.