Policy · Asia-Pacific

Chinese chip toolmakers buy into hybrid bonding as Huawei looks beyond transistor shrinking

Reading from TrendForce · Credited to DigiTimes $ · digitimes.com · 16h ago

Photograph · DigiTimes

SEMICON China 2026, the largest semiconductor industry event in Shanghai, opened on March 25. According to STAR Market Daily, several Chinese chip equipment makers showcased their latest progress, with leading players including Naura, AMEC, Piotech, ACM Research (Shanghai), SMEE, and Hwatsing in attendance. As for SiCarrier, which drew significant attention last year for its lithography systems, the report notes that its subsidiary also participated in the event.

As China’s chip push intensifies, its share of global output for chips produced on mature 22nm to 40nm nodes used in cars, smartphones, and consumer electronics is projected to reach 42% by 2028, up from 37% in 2026, SEMI China said at the event, as cited by Reuters.

Naura, AMEC, ACM Highlight New Tools Across Etching and Hybrid Bonding

The event features China’s leading domestic chip equipment makers. As a major A-share player, Naura unveiled several new products. As noted by STAR Market Daily, its 12-inch NMC612H inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching system delivers aspect ratios of several hundred to one for small-feature etching with angstrom-level uniformity, reinforcing its position in high-end ICP tools and supporting more advanced nodes.

The report also highlights that Naura’s 12-inch Qomola HPD30 hybrid bonding system places the company among the first in China to complete customer-side process verification for die-to-wafer (D2W) hybrid bonding, marking its entry into 3D integration hybrid bonding equipment.

AMEC also unveiled four new tools, expanding its capabilities in etching, thin-film deposition, and core intelligent components. Notably, as STAR Market Daily indicates, the launch of Primo Angnova™ provides a domestically controlled, advanced ICP etching solution for manufacturing logic chips at 5nm and below.

Meanwhile, ACM Research (Shanghai) introduced its ACM Planetary Family, a new product architecture comprising eight independent series named after the solar system’s eight planets, each corresponding to a core semiconductor process step. The company added that all newly showcased products have completed development and entered mass production, the report adds.

SiCarrier Shows Presence Through Subsidiaries

Still, SiCarrier, which made a strong debut at SEMICON 2025 with its lithography tool series named after well-known mountains, was unexpectedly absent this year, with subsidiaries Long Sight and Qiyunfang attending instead. As STAR Market Daily highlights, Qiyunfang has developed two electronic engineering EDA tools with fully proprietary intellectual property. Its solutions have served more than 20,000 engineers, with enterprise testing showing they can shorten time-to-market by 40%.

In one of the most closely watched segments, lithography equipment, STAR Market Daily notes that CFMEE showcased maskless direct-write solutions spanning panel-level to wafer-level applications. Its WLP series enables direct exposure without photomasks and supports wafer-level packaging, offering solutions for advanced packaging processes such as CoWoS- and SoW-like technologies.

Beyond China’s domestic players, global equipment makers are also showcasing new products at the event. According to The Asia Business Daily, Hanmi Semiconductor unveiled its “2.5D TC Bonder” for the first time at SEMICON China. As the report notes, the company plans to introduce its next-generation HBM production equipment, the “Wide TC Bonder,” in the second half of this year.

Chips & SupplyUnited States

Techwing's Third-Quarter Revenue More Than Doubles on Memory Chip Boom

Credited to TheElec · thelec.net16h ago

Useful

Techwing reported more than a twofold increase in third-quarter revenue from a year earlier, benefiting from a boom in the memory semiconductor market.

Techwing said in a regulatory filing on Oct. 14 that preliminary third-quarter revenue reached approximately 87.8 billion won, while operating profit totaled about 18 billion won. The figures represent year-on-year increases of 110.18% and 153.04%, respectively.

Cumulative revenue for the first nine months of this year reached approximately 197 billion won, with operating profit of about 40.2 billion won. Both figures have already exceeded last year's full-year revenue of about 159.1 billion won and operating profit of approximately 15.8 billion won.

The growth was driven by increased capital spending by Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Micron, the three major memory chipmakers. "As the three memory manufacturers expand their fabs and increase wafer production, demand for testing has grown," a Techwing official said. Techwing supplies high-bandwidth memory (HBM) testing equipment to all three companies.

Memory test handlers account for the largest share of the company's business. "Demand for memory test handlers has surged," the official said. "As equipment shipments increased, parts revenue also grew."

Memory test handlers transport devices under test to automated test equipment (ATE), the main testing system. They also create high- and low-temperature environments to assess chip reliability. Micron is a major customer.

Revenue from a new product supplied to Samsung Electronics was also recognized in the third quarter. Techwing disclosed in August that it had been supplying HBM testing equipment worth 9.72 billion won to Samsung since June. Although the company did not identify the product, it was confirmed to be its Cube Prober equipment.

The Cube Prober is an HBM die testing system that performs comprehensive testing of logic and core dies. It can test 256 dies simultaneously at temperatures ranging from minus 40 to 150 degrees Celsius.

Techwing has been supplying Cube Prober equipment to Samsung Electronics since last year. The company also supplies the equipment to SK hynix.

Original · TheElec

Front Method

Policy · United States

NERC Reliability Standards for Data Centers and Crypto Loads Pass Final Ballot, Advance to Board Review

Credited to Power Magazine · powermag.com · 19h ago

Photograph · Power Magazine

Proposed reliability standards that would require qualifying data centers, artificial intelligence facilities, and cryptocurrency operations to provide grid data, coordinate protection settings, and respond to grid operators’ instructions have passed their final stakeholder ballot, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) announced Oct. 15.

The standards and associated implementation plans will next go before NERC’s Board of Trustees for adoption, followed by submission to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for U.S. regulatory approval, the organization said in its announcement.

The Project 2026-02 package includes three new computational-load standards and revisions to two existing facility-interconnection standards. The new standards would apply to computational-load sites with at least 50 MW of total connected load supplied through electrical equipment connected at 100 kV or above, from one or more points of connection, under the final-ballot applicability provisions.

The vote advances the technical requirements behind FERC’s July 16 directive, which required NERC to file initial computational-load standards by Dec. 31, 2026. A separate registration effort also progressed on Oct. 8, when NERC’s board approved proposed Rules of Procedure revisions to establish Computational Load Owner and Computational Load Operator as two functional entity types, according to NERC’s third-quarter Large Loads Action Plan update.

Which Data Centers Would Be Subject to NERC’s Reliability Standards?

The proposed framework distinguishes the entity that owns and maintains a computational-load site from the entity that operates it, according to the final glossary definitions. Individual registration determinations would depend on each entity’s circumstances and would be conducted through NERC and the relevant Regional Entities, NERC’s October project FAQ says.

The 100-kV criterion concerns the electrical equipment supplying the site, typically its high-side voltage, rather than necessarily the point of connection identified in an interconnection agreement, the FAQ explains. The requirements would cover existing and future qualifying sites, and applicable utilities, planners, and grid operators would have duties alongside computational-load owners and operators, the document states.

The threshold is narrower than NERC’s initial registration proposal: the minimum load and voltage criteria increased from 20 MW and 60 kV to 50 MW and 100 kV following stakeholder comments, according to the third-quarter update. The board also authorized expedited development of a data request to support registration of computational-load owners and operators, pending FERC approval of the proposed registry criteria, the update says.

Proposed NERC Standards Cover Data Center Modeling, Operations, and Protection

The first new standard, CLO-001-1, would require coordinated interconnection studies, commissioning procedures, and planning-model data for computational-load sites. Transmission planners and planning coordinators would study new connections and existing sites seeking a “qualified change,” and planning coordinators would maintain a publicly available definition of that term under the proposed standard.

The required modeling information would include settings and capabilities related to tripping, ride-through, and recovery after disturbances, as well as the amount and expected use of information-technology infrastructure, under CLO-001-1. Owners would provide model-verification documentation to show that configurable, site-specific parameters represent installed equipment, including updates within 180 days after hardware, software, firmware, or setting changes that alter dynamic response, the standard specifies.

The second standard, CLO-002-1, would establish operational-data and communications obligations. Transmission operators, balancing authorities, and reliability coordinators would document their data needs, and computational-load owners and operators that receive those specifications would have to satisfy them under the proposal.

Among its most consequential provisions, computational-load operators would have to comply with operating instructions from their transmission operator, balancing authority, or reliability coordinator unless the action could not be physically implemented or would violate safety, equipment, regulatory, or statutory requirements, under Requirement R8. Operators unable to comply would have to notify the issuing entity, and personnel who receive oral operating instructions would need initial training in confirming or requesting repetition of those instructions, the standard states.

The third standard, CLO-003-1, addresses protection coordination and disturbance monitoring, including breaker-status records, fault recordings, and continuous dynamic disturbance data. Load owners would also establish and use a process for developing protection settings so protective systems operate in the intended sequence during faults, including resolving identified coordination issues before implementation, under its requirements.

Recording responsibilities would depend partly on equipment ownership: where a utility or generator owner owns the main transformer supplying the site, that entity would bear the applicable fault- and dynamic-disturbance-recording duties, according to the CLO-003-1 implementation plan. Changes to existing standards FAC-001 and FAC-002 are intended to avoid duplicative interconnection requirements, according to the associated implementation plan.

Data Center Industry Questions Multitenant Compliance Responsibilities

How those obligations would work at multitenant facilities was a substantive issue during development: a site operator may lack authority over tenants’ equipment, access to their information, or the technical ability to change their consumption, the Data Center Coalition argued in comments summarized in the drafting team’s response document. Data requests should not require owners and operators to provide information outside their control or access, the coalition said in those comments.

A dedicated on-site operating organization is not required, and a centralized or shared function could serve as the accountable operator, the drafting team said in responses to Meta and the coalition. Allocation of responsibility at multitenant sites would depend on registration and operational responsibilities, and NERC staff were developing additional registration clarity, the team said in the same document.

The existing exceptions for physically infeasible actions and safety, equipment, regulatory, or statutory restrictions provide limits on operating instructions, the drafting team said in its responses. The final text retains those exceptions rather than expressly adding the contractual and third-party-control exclusions sought by the coalition, as reflected in CLO-002-1.

Proposed NERC Compliance Timelines Extend Up to Three Years After Standards Take Effect

The year-end FERC filing deadline is not a deadline for facilities to comply: the proposed plans establish effective dates tied to regulatory approval and then allow additional implementation periods, as set out in the CLO-001-1 plan. In jurisdictions requiring approval, that standard would become effective on the first day of the first calendar quarter after the approving order’s effective date, unless the relevant authority provides otherwise, the plan specifies.

Planning coordinators would have three months after CLO-001-1’s effective date to establish qualified-change definitions, and planning coordinators and transmission planners would jointly develop modeling-data requirements within the same period, under its phased schedule. Interconnection-requirement duties would follow at six months, and the remaining study and owner-data obligations at nine months, under the same schedule. For operational data and communications, grid entities would have six months to establish and distribute data specifications, while owners and operators would generally have 12 months for data provision, operating-instruction, communications, and training obligations under the CLO-002-1 plan.

Disturbance monitoring has the longest proposed transition: sites in service on or before CLO-003-1’s effective date would have 36 months to meet its recording requirements, under the implementation plan. Sites entering service afterward would have until 15 months after the standard’s effective date or their in-service date, whichever is later; protection-coordination duties would begin after nine months, the plan specifies.

The monitoring schedule accounts for equipment procurement, installation, and necessary outages, according to the plan. For sites in service no later than 12 months after the standard’s effective date, entities could request extensions of the monitoring requirements if circumstances beyond their control prevent equipment installation, under the implementation plan. Those periods remain proposed, and the standards still require board adoption and applicable regulatory approval, NERC said in its Oct. 15 announcement.

Minimum Voltage and Frequency Ride-Through Standards Remain Under Development

The package responds to gaps identified through NERC’s incident reviews, Large Loads Working Group, and May Level 3 Essential Action Alert, which addressed modeling, studies, commissioning, protection, monitoring, and operational coordination for computational loads. The alert called for assessment of aggregate load reductions, including customer-initiated reductions, that could cause planning-criteria violations, as well as better information about facilities’ protection and control responses.

However, this initial package does not establish industry-wide minimum voltage and frequency ride-through performance requirements—the conditions under which facilities must continue operating through electrical disturbances—as NERC explicitly states in its October FAQ. Its interconnection provisions can accommodate ride-through criteria based on grid-performance needs, but broader minimum performance requirements are a separate development effort, the document explains.

Additional work is proceeding on disturbance performance, computational-load-loss studies, and event reporting and model validation, according to the third-quarter action-plan update. A work plan for subsequent computational-load standards is due to FERC by March 1, 2027, under the July order.

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