Is China's Lithography Machine Entering the "DeepSeek Era"? Domestic DUV Mass Production News Triggers Global Semiconductor Stock Plunge

July 27th. According to sources familiar with the matter cited by The Information, a Chinese state-backed company has started mass production of domestically developed DUV (Deep Ultraviolet) lithography manufacturing equipment, marking a key milestone in the localization of China's semiconductor industry.

The sources stated that the company plans to produce around 5 domestic DUV lithography machines by 2026 and scale up to about 20 by 2027. Although there is still a gap compared to the 131 sets of immersion DUV lithography systems delivered by the Dutch lithography giant ASML last year, the domestic equipment entering the mass production phase is seen by the market as a significant breakthrough in the localization of the Chinese semiconductor supply chain.

It is reported that the first batch of domestic DUV equipment is planned to be delivered to SMIC, HSMC, and memory chip manufacturer ChangXin Memory and other domestic chipmakers. Among them, ChangXin Memory, as a representative of China's DRAM industry, is expected to become a key application scenario for domestically produced advanced semiconductor equipment.

Impacted by the news, the global semiconductor market experienced significant volatility. The U.S. stock storage chip sector collectively declined, with SanDisk falling by about 12.9%, Western Digital by about 8.6%, Seagate Technology by about 6.9%, Micron Technology by about 6.6%, and SK Hynix by about 8.6%. The stock prices of Dutch ASML and Besi Semiconductor both dropped by over 8% at one point triggering automatic halts, and German semiconductor company Infineon also trended downwards.

Market experts believe that if domestically produced DUV equipment can achieve stable operation on the production lines of ChangXin Memory and other manufacturers, it may further weaken China's chip manufacturing's reliance on overseas critical equipment and alter the global semiconductor equipment competition landscape. The market's reaction indicates that the progress of domestic lithography machine mass production has become a crucial variable affecting the valuation of the global semiconductor industry chain.