SMEE Displays a Dry Lithography Platform Model at CIIE

Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (Group), or SMEE, has displayed a model of a new-generation front-end dry lithography platform at the ninth China International Import Expo in Shanghai. Mysteel reported on November 6, citing the company's official Chinese account, that the platform supports both i-line and KrF technology routes.

The exhibit is a transparent cutaway model showing the optical path and the layout of internal electromechanical systems. It illustrates a standardized equipment architecture, rather than constituting an announcement that the displayed model is a newly delivered production tool. The expo runs from November 5 through 10.

According to SMEE's account, the platform brings together high-precision objective lenses and illumination, high-speed dual wafer stages and a reticle stage, integrated automated material handling, and alignment and leveling sensors. The company describes the development and control of these core systems as being in-house across the chain.

The platform approach is intended to support two exposure routes within a common architecture. The cited report does not give a model designation, resolution, numerical aperture, overlay specification or wafer-per-hour throughput for the exhibit. It therefore does not establish a particular process-node capability or a production schedule for a new tool.

SMEE separately says multiple pieces of its equipment have been running for extended periods on domestic logic and memory volume-production lines. The company reports cumulative processing of more than 10 million wafers and an effective equipment operating rate above 92%. Guancha's November 8 Chinese technology roundup repeats those figures as company claims.

Those totals refer to equipment already operating on production lines, not to wafers processed by the exhibition model. Neither report identifies the customers, the number of installed tools or the measurement period and methodology behind the operating-rate figure, and the figures have not been independently verified.

Founded in 2002, SMEE develops and manufactures lithography equipment and provides related technical services. The concrete news at CIIE is its display of a shared dry-lithography architecture and the accompanying operational claims, rather than an independently documented performance comparison or a shipment announcement.

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