$ETH On July 27, citing information from The Information and sources familiar with the matter, a company backed by China’s state-owned capital has begun mass production of DUV (deep-ultraviolet) lithography machines made with independently developed manufacturing equipment—an important step in China’s semiconductor industry pushing for domestically made substitutions.

It is understood that the company plans to produce about 5 DUV lithography machines in 2026 and expand to about 20 machines in 2027. Although there is still a gap versus the production capacity of Dutch lithography giant ASML (ASML delivered 131 immersion-type DUV lithography systems last year), mass production breakthroughs for domestically made DUV equipment mean China’s chip manufacturing supply chain is moving further toward being self-reliant and controllable.

Sources say this batch of domestically made DUV lithography machines is planned to be delivered to China’s major chipmakers, including SMIC, HuaHong Semiconductor, and the storage chip manufacturer ChangXin Memory Technologies.

Among them, ChangXin Memory Technologies, as a representative enterprise in China’s DRAM industry, is expected to become an important end user of domestically made advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment. If domestically made DUV equipment can achieve stable operation on production lines at companies such as ChangXin Memory Technologies, it will further reduce China’s storage chip industry’s dependence on overseas critical equipment.