Richard Chang, founder of SMIC, and Gerald Yin, CEO of AMEC, have urged Chinese chipmakers to test domestic semiconductor tools on active production lines. Chang argued that domestic equipment cannot improve without real production-line trials. Yin said that Chinese customers still default to foreign tools out of habit.
Record revenues but falling margins
Chinese semiconductor equipment vendors posted record revenues in 2025 but saw falling margins due to domestic price competition. AMEC reported full-year revenue of $1.74 billion, up 36.6% year over year, with net profit of $310 million, up 30.6%. Naura Technology posted $3.91 billion in revenue in the first three quarters. Piotech roughly doubled its nine-month revenue to $617 million. ACM Research booked $901.3 million for the full year.
AMEC's gross margin fell 1.9 percentage points to 39.2%. ACM Research's gross margin slid from 50.1% to 44.4%. Chinese fabs now source roughly 35% of their equipment domestically, up from about 25% a year ago.
Lithography remains the key bottleneck. SMEE produces 90nm-class ArF systems. Yuliangsheng's immersion DUV scanner is under test at SMIC, which is thought to be targeting the tool for 28nm production in 2027. The MATCH Act has passed a House committee and would ban DUV immersion lithography exports to China. AMEC claims its etch technology is used in TSMC's supply chain at nodes from 65nm down to 5nm and 3nm, but those claims have not been independently verified.
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