China begins mass-producing homegrown DUV immersion lithography machines, targets 5 units 2026 and 20 in 2027, first to SMIC Hua Hong CXMT
China has begun mass-producing homegrown immersion DUV lithography machines, per The Information and Tom's Hardware. First units land at SMIC, Hua Hong and CXMT this year: about 5 machines in 2026, 20 in 2027. Some parts still come from Japan. ASML $ASML alone ships roughly 130 a
China has begun mass-producing its first homegrown immersion DUV lithography machines, according to reporting from The Information and Tom's Hardware. The machines will start reaching Chinese chipmakers this year, with first units going to SMIC, Hua Hong Semiconductor and memory maker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT). Output targets sit around 5 machines in 2026 and roughly 20 in 2027. Most components in the new systems are domestic, though some critical parts still come from Japan, and delays at local suppliers have held back output this year. For scale, ASML $ASML alone plans to ship about 130 immersion systems in 2026, matching 2025 output, with capacity set to rise 30 percent in 2027. China accounted for about 20 percent of ASML's 2026 net sales, down from 33 percent in 2025. Analysts at the AI Futures Project found in a June analysis that commercial-scale Chinese immersion DUV production remains years away, projected for the mid-2030s, and that ASML still holds roughly 98.7 percent of the immersion lithography market. The breakthrough narrows a manufacturing capability gap that mattered most after US export controls cut China off from ASML's newest tools. But building a handful of machines is different from qualifying them for high-volume production lines, where yield, overlay precision and reliability across thousands of wafer runs determine whether chipmakers can actually rely on them at scale.