Chinese manufacturer Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) has unveiled six new machines for manufacturing semiconductors, with tools aimed at etching, thin-film deposition, and the production of silicon carbide (SiC) chips. The launch, held during CSEAC 2026 in Wuxi, shows how the company is expanding beyond etching to compete for a larger share of the equipment Chinese chip fabs need.
AMEC’s six new machines in 20 seconds
- AMEC has unveiled six in-house-developed tools for different chip manufacturing processes.
- Four cover thin-film deposition technologies.
- The company debuts an extreme etching machine for 3D NAND and DRAM memory.
- It also enters silicon carbide epitaxy on 8-inch wafers.
- The tools are at different stages of commercialization.
The announcement matters because of the type of machines involved. China can increase its semiconductor manufacturing capacity, but it still depends on foreign suppliers for certain categories of equipment. Export restrictions imposed by the United States and its allies have increased the incentives to develop domestic alternatives, a push also visible in China’s own DUV lithography rollout.
AMEC is precisely one of the best-positioned Chinese manufacturers in that race. The company has historically specialized in etching equipment, but four of the six announced products now belong to the deposition category. The move brings it closer to the model used by international suppliers that cover several stages within a semiconductor fab.
From Etching Specialist to Multi-Stage Manufacturing Supplier
Manufacturing a processor or a memory chip requires hundreds of operations on a wafer. Two processes recur throughout: deposition and etching.
Deposition adds extremely thin layers of different materials. Etching selectively removes parts of those layers to build the microscopic structures that will eventually form transistors, interconnects, and other components.
AMEC has unveiled Primo XD-RIE, a new extreme-aspect-ratio etching machine aimed especially at 3D NAND and DRAM memory.
The tool is designed to work with depth-to-width ratios of between 70:1 and 90:1. This type of etching becomes increasingly complex as 3D NAND memory adds more vertically stacked layers.
The machine incorporates a low-temperature etching system, high-power radio-frequency sources, and mechanisms to control plasma distribution. AMEC also claims to have developed a gas architecture aimed at reducing certain greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining the process’s specs. That last claim comes from the manufacturer and will need to be verified under real production conditions.
But the most significant change is in deposition.
| New tool | Technology | Main application |
|---|---|---|
| Primo XD-RIE | Etching | 3D NAND and DRAM |
| Performo QuaStar ON | PECVD | Oxide/nitride layers for 3D memory |
| Performo QuaStar GE | PECVD | Dielectric films |
| Prefima Unicore AM | Molybdenum ALD | High-stack 3D memory |
| Preforma Uniflash SPTi/TiN | Integrated metal deposition | Advanced logic and memory |
| PRISMO PDS8 | SiC epitaxy | Power semiconductors |
PECVD stands for plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, while ALD is atomic layer deposition. Both can create very thin, tightly controlled films on wafers.
The Performo QuaStar ON is aimed at manufacturing silicon oxide and silicon nitride structures used in 3D flash memory. It has four reaction chambers with four stations each and can process up to 16 wafers at once, according to specifications published by AMEC.
The QuaStar GE expands the catalog to different dielectric films used in memory and logic, including silicon oxide, silicon nitride, silicon oxynitride, silicon oxycarbide, and silicon carbide.
AMEC Bets on Molybdenum and 3D Memory
Another of the more technically interesting machines is Prefima Unicore AM, an atomic layer deposition system for molybdenum on 12-inch wafers.
AMEC is aiming this tool at the manufacturing of three-dimensional memories with an ever-growing number of layers.
As internal structures grow deeper and more complex, depositing materials uniformly becomes harder. The industry is also researching the use of molybdenum in certain interconnects and word lines to address some of the limitations of materials currently in use.
The Chinese system uses four reaction stations and a rapid gas-exchange mechanism that controls deposition cycles on a millisecond scale, according to technical information released during CSEAC.
AMEC has also unveiled Preforma Uniflash SPTi/TiN, which integrates several operations related to metal films.
The system combines selective pre-clean, plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition of titanium, and ALD deposition of titanium nitride.
It’s aimed at processes used in logic chips and advanced memory, including metal-to-semiconductor contacts, protective layers, and capacitor electrodes.
The cluster of deposition products in a single launch is significant because AMEC is trying to break into markets where some of the world’s largest semiconductor equipment makers compete.
South China Morning Post notes that the international etching and deposition markets are dominated by American and Japanese companies such as Lam Research, Applied Materials, and Tokyo Electron.
For China, developing domestic suppliers capable of covering these operations could reduce certain points of external dependence, although unveiling a machine doesn’t equate to immediately replacing foreign equipment already installed in production.
Fabs put this type of system through long qualification processes. Performance, contamination, uniformity, availability, throughput, and operating cost all have to stay within very tight tolerances across millions of operations.
Silicon Carbide Opens Another Front for AMEC
The sixth machine expands the catalog even further.
PRISMO PDS8 is a silicon carbide epitaxial growth system designed to work with 8-inch wafers. It can hold up to four reaction chambers and process four wafers simultaneously.
Silicon carbide is gaining importance in power electronics thanks to its characteristics compared with conventional silicon in certain high-voltage, high-temperature applications.
SiC devices can be used in inverters for electric vehicles, chargers, industrial systems, renewable energy, and other applications where reducing electrical losses is especially valuable.
The industry is also gradually moving from 6-inch SiC wafers to 8-inch formats. A larger wafer can potentially yield more devices per cycle, although the transition raises challenges related to material quality, uniformity, and production yield.
For this tool, AMEC drew on part of its earlier experience with MOCVD (metal-organic chemical vapor deposition) systems used for gallium nitride epitaxy.
The diversification isn’t limited to these six products.
The company recently stated that it has more than 20 new machines in development spread across six equipment categories. It also claims to have cut its development cycle from the three to five years it used to need down to two years or less.
The effort comes alongside a sharp increase in spending.
During the first half of 2026, AMEC spent 2,040 million yuan (about $303.5 million) on research and development, up 36.9% year over year. That amount represented roughly 30.5% of its revenue for the period.
The Wuxi launch is also AMEC’s second major wave of products in barely six months. In March, it had announced four other machines at SEMICON China.
The pace shows just how hard Chinese manufacturers are working to rapidly expand their catalogs amid international technology restrictions — the same pressure pushing Huawei toward 3D chip stacking as a workaround for advanced-node limits.
But the deciding factor will come after the presentations. The six machines are at different stages of commercialization, so not all of them are necessarily installed on large-scale production lines yet.
China needs these tools to pass its manufacturers’ qualification processes and maintain competitive performance and reliability during continuous production.
AMEC is no longer trying to be just a Chinese alternative in etching. With deposition, metal films, and SiC epitaxy, it’s working to cover a larger slice of the machines found inside a fab. The success of that strategy will depend less on how many tools get unveiled than on how many end up running on actual chip production lines.
Frequently Asked Questions
What new machines has AMEC unveiled?
AMEC has announced six tools covering high-aspect-ratio etching, PECVD, ALD, metal film deposition, and silicon carbide epitaxy.
Why do AMEC’s new tools matter for China?
Because they expand the domestic supply of chipmaking equipment in categories where Chinese fabs still rely on foreign technology. Their real impact will depend on whether they pass industrial qualification processes.
Does AMEC manufacture chips?
No. AMEC manufactures equipment used to produce semiconductors. Its customers use these machines inside fabs to carry out processes such as etching, deposition, and epitaxial growth.
How much does AMEC invest in research and development?
During the first half of 2026, it spent 2,040 million yuan on R&D, about $303.5 million, up 36.9% year over year and roughly 30.5% of its revenue.