Electronic gases include bulk electronic gases and electronic specialty gases, which are indispensable key materials in the manufacturing process of integrated circuits, display panels, semiconductor lighting, and photovoltaics. It is also the second largest manufacturing material for integrated circuit manufacturing. According to statistics from the Semiconductor Industry Association and the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, electronic gas accounts for 14% of the wafer manufacturing cost, after silicon wafers, in the proportion of semiconductor manufacturing materials.
The usage of electronic bulk gases and electronic specialty gases in the field of electronic semiconductors can be seen by their proportion in costs. In subdivided fields such as integrated circuit manufacturing and semiconductor display, which has more production links, electronic bulk gases account for a higher proportion of the total gas cost. In the field of integrated circuit manufacturing, electronic bulk gases account for 55%, and in the field of semiconductor display, the proportion of electronic bulk gases is as high as 65%.
Electronic specialty gases are mainly used in photolithography, etching, film formation, cleaning, doping, deposition, and other process links. They are mainly divided into cleaning gases such as nitrogen trifluoride and metal vapor deposition gases such as tungsten hexafluoride.
In the semiconductor preparation process, there are three main modes of electronic special gas supply: on-site gas supply, storage tank gas supply, and bottled gas supply. At this stage, China’s semiconductor preparation process mainly uses on-site gas supply and storage tank gas supply. In the future, as semiconductor preparation increases, on-site gas supply will become the most important supply mode for industry supply.
From a global perspective, the demand for electronic specialty gases used in the integrated circuit industry accounts for 71% of the total market demand, and the demand in the display panel industry accounts for 18% of the total market demand. From a Chinese perspective, the demand for electronic specialty gases used in integrated circuits accounts for 42% of the total market demand, and the demand used in the display panel industry accounts for 37% of the total market demand.
There are many types of electronic specialty gases, which can be mainly divided into the following categories:
1. Inert gases such as helium (He), neon (Ne), and argon (Ar) are mainly used to provide a low-reactivity environment or to act as a carrier gas.
2. Etching gases such as hydrogen fluoride (HF), silicon tetrafluoride (SiF4), chlorine (Cl2) and fluorine (F2), are used to remove specific materials on the semiconductor surface.
3. Deposition gases such as silane (SiH4), silicon tetrachloride (SiCl4) and methane (CH4), are used for the deposition of materials in the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process.
4. Doping gases such as phosphine (PH3), arsine (AsH3), and borane (B2H6), are used to change the electrical properties of semiconductor materials.
5. Photolithography gases such as argon fluoride (ArF) and krypton fluoride (KrF) are used in lithography machines to generate light of specific wavelengths to produce tiny circuit patterns.
The preparation, storage and transportation of electronic specialty gas requires special equipment and technology to ensure its purity and safety. In addition, since some electronic gases are highly reactive and/or toxic, strict safety measures are required during use.
Electronic specialty gases are crucial to the development of the semiconductor industry. With the advancement of semiconductor technology and the increasing complexity of the chip design, the demand for electronic specialty gases is also growing. This drives technological innovation among electronic specialty gas producers and suppliers to meet the market demand.
The global electric specialty gas market is expected to exceed US$6 billion in 2025. According to TECHCET statistics, the global market size of electronic specialty gases was approximately US$3.691 billion in 2017 and will further grow to US$4.538 billion in 2021. The compound growth rate from 2017 to 2021 is 5.30%, and the market capacity is expected to exceed US$6 billion in 2025, with the compound growth rate from 2021 to 2025 is expected to reach 7.33%. In 2021, the global electronic gas market size will be approximately US$6.251 billion, of which electronic specialty gases account for 72.60% and electronic bulk gases account for 27.40%.
Companies overseas have a near-monopoly, and the process of domestic production needs to be accelerated. The top ten companies, including Linde, the world’s major electronic gas manufacturer, collectively occupy more than 90% of the global electronic gas market share. According to statistics from Zhiyan Information, from 2018 to 2020, the localization rate of China’s electronic special gases increased from 9% to 14% in consecutive years, an increase of 5 percentage points in three years. As the trend of domestically produced electronic specialty gases continues to increase, it is expected that the localization rate of electronic special gases in China will reach 25% in 2025.
Global wafer production capacity is expected to increase by 6.4% in 2024. According to SEMI statistics, global semiconductor wafer monthly (WPM) production capacity increased by 5.5% to 29.6 million pieces in 2023 and is expected to grow by 6.4% in 2024. Growth in 2024 will be driven by cutting-edge logic, including generative AI driven by applications such as high-performance computing (HPC).
42 new fab projects will be added in 2024. The “World Fab Forecast Report” shows that from 2022 to 2024, the global semiconductor industry plans to start operating 82 new wafer fabs, including 11 projects in 2023 and 42 projects in 2024– circle sizes varying from 300mm to 100mm. China will be the lead in the boom in this production expansion.
Driven by government funding and other incentives, China is expected to increase its share of global semiconductor capacity. Chinese chip makers are expected to start 18 projects in 2024, with production capacity increasing 12% in 2023 to 7.6 million wafers per month, and production capacity increasing 13% in 2024 to 8.6 million wafers per month.
Looking forward to 2025, according to SEMI statistics, to keep up with the continued growth of chip demand, global semiconductor manufacturing capacity is expected to achieve a 7% growth in 2025, reaching a record wafer production capacity of 33.7 million wafers per month (wpm), at a new height (measured in 8-inch equivalents). We believe that as wafer fabs enter a new round of expansion, the demand for materials will grow rapidly. Domestic companies should firmly seize the current opportunities.
