--- title: "Etching past 5nm: how AMEC (中微公司) became China's quiet equipment lever" date: 2026-11-07 category: Chips & Compute site: NeuroAI canonical: https://neuroai.site/a/na-chips-amec-etch-equipment language: en --- # Etching past 5nm: how AMEC (中微公司) became China's quiet equipment lever > AMEC (中微公司), the Shanghai etching-tool maker, posted 2025 equipment revenue of about 12.4 billion RMB (≈ US$1.7B) and says chambers of its making have entered international sub-5nm lines. A single domestic brokerage note, not a company filing, is the source of the sub-5nm claims that draw the most attention to AMEC (中微公司). AMEC (中微公司), listed in Shanghai as 688012, builds the etching and deposition tools that turn a blank wafer into a working circuit. Its 2025 full-year equipment revenue came in at about 12.4 billion RMB (≈ US$1.7 billion), almost entirely from the domestic market. That scale matters because etching is where the physics gets brutal at the leading edge. ## Key takeaways - AMEC (中微公司) reported 2025 semiconductor-equipment revenue of 12.385 billion RMB (≈ US$1.7B), with about 97% of that from mainland China. - Etching is its core: a 2025 domestic brokerage note reports more than 3,800 reaction chambers shipped, and 300-plus of them in international production lines at the 5nm node and below. - Its Primo UD-RIE product achieves aspect ratios of 60:1 or higher, a capability described as penetrating the most critical etch steps of DRAM and 3D NAND. - AMEC runs a dual engine — CCP high-power etching plus ICP — and is pushing into thin-film deposition (LPCVD) and MOCVD. - The reliability of the chamber-count and sub-5nm claims rests on a single domestic brokerage source, flagged below. ## Why etching is the real bottleneck As transistors shrink, the holes and trenches etched into silicon get deeper and narrower at the same time. The ratio of depth to width — the aspect ratio — climbs, and conventional etching struggles to carve the bottom without bending the sidewalls. AMEC's Primo UD-RIE is rated for aspect ratios at or above 60:1, which the company says is why it is winning slots in the deepest etch steps of 3D NAND (where every added layer means more etching) and DRAM. The company's two-product strategy is worth understanding. CCP (capacitively coupled plasma) etching handles the high-energy steps; ICP (inductively coupled plasma) covers the gentler, high-uniformity steps and has been growing faster. Per a 2025 domestic brokerage note, ICP unit shipments had been compounding at over 70% across the prior three years. I treat that growth figure as an estimate, not a company-confirmed statistic. ## From etching into deposition AMEC is not content to be "only" an etcher. It shipped its first LPCVD (thin-film deposition) tool in 2024 and, per company guidance cited by analysts, held a deposition order backlog of about 476 million RMB (≈ US$66M) at the end of that year. Deposition matters because 3D NAND adds at least two film-deposition and two etch passes per layer — so every layer gained multiplies the addressable tool market. MOCVD, its third pillar, serves LEDs and third-generation power devices. ## The honest scale question The headline numbers that sound most impressive — 3,800-plus chambers shipped, 300-plus in sub-5nm international lines — come from a single domestic brokerage research report, not a primary AMEC disclosure I could independently re-verify. The 2025 revenue (12.385 billion RMB) is from the company's official annual filing and is solid. The rest should be read as "credible but single-sourced." The brokerage note describes AMEC as having tools qualified inside advanced, high-volume lines rather than only in mature-node fabs. For context on why any of this matters outside the fab: China has spent years trying to raise the domestic share of the tools that build its chips, not just the chips themselves. Etching is a step where a local supplier is described as having reached the advanced node, which is why AMEC's chamber counts — however loosely sourced — draw attention. A "reaction chamber" is the sealed vessel where plasma actually etches the wafer; the number a toolmaker has shipped is a rough proxy for how many production lines trust its machines. That makes the 3,800-chamber figure, if accurate, a meaningful adoption signal even before counting which nodes those chambers serve. ## What readers can do now - **If you invest in or report on semiconductors, separate "equipment revenue" from "leading-edge qualification."** AMEC's revenue is real and domestic; its cutting-edge reach is promising but less independently confirmed. - **If you follow the China supply chain, watch LPCVD and MOCVD orders**, not just etching — that is where AMEC is trying to widen from single-product strength to a platform. - **If you build or buy, remember toolmakers move with fab expansion.** Equipment demand tracks wafer-fab capacity builds, which are themselves sensitive to export-control shifts. ## Honest limitations Revenue and product-line figures are from AMEC's official 2025 annual report (Shanghai exchange filings). The 3,800-chamber shipment count, the 300-plus sub-5nm-line claim, the 60:1 aspect-ratio rating, and the ICP growth and LPCVD-backlog numbers come from a 2025 domestic brokerage note and are single-sourced; I have labeled them as estimates. I have not independently verified the sub-5nm international deployments and recommend treating them as indicative. The article does not cover AMEC's litigation, governance, or full product roadmap, and it deliberately avoids implying the company has matched the broad tool portfolio of Applied Materials or Lam Research. --- Published by NeuroAI (https://neuroai.site/) — https://neuroai.site/a/na-chips-amec-etch-equipment Free to quote with attribution and a link to the original.