China Targets 80% Chip Self-Sufficiency by 2030 With All-Domestic Etch and Deposition Equipment at 7nm

By NineScrolls Team · 2026-03-31 · 4 min read · Industry

13 Industry Leaders Draft the 80% Plan

Thirteen senior executives across China's semiconductor industry — including Yangtze Memory Technologies Chairman Chen Nanxiang and NAURA Technology Group Chairman Zhao Jinrong — have drawn up a plan to achieve 80% semiconductor self-sufficiency by 2030. China sat at roughly 33% self-sufficiency in 2024, making the target among the most ambitious industrial goals Beijing has set for the chip sector.

The plan's headline milestone: build and validate a complete 7nm production line using entirely domestically produced equipment by 2030, with stable volume production of 14nm ICs as a nearer-term checkpoint. A separate TrendForce report from February 2026 flagged an interim target of 70% domestic equipment adoption by 2027, with SMEE and NAURA named as the companies at the forefront.

The 50% Domestic Equipment Mandate Already in Force

The plan builds on a policy already reshaping procurement across Chinese fabs. Chipmakers seeking state approval to build or expand plants have been told by authorities that at least 50% of their equipment must be Chinese-made. Applications that fail the threshold are typically rejected, though authorities grant temporary flexibility for advanced nodes where local tool availability still lags — particularly in lithography.

Officials have told applicants that 50% is a floor, not a ceiling. The long-term objective is exclusive use of domestic wafer fab tools. The rule is applied most strictly to mature-node production lines, which account for the bulk of China's installed capacity.

Where Chinese Etch and Deposition Tools Stand Today

China's domestic chip equipment adoption rate beat its 2025 target, reaching 35% according to TrendForce. In the critical segments of etching and thin film deposition, the domestic substitution rate has already crossed 40%.

NAURA Technology Group has begun mass production of 28nm etch tools and reported a 30% revenue jump to 16 billion yuan in H1 2025. Its order backlog is scheduled through Q1 2027. Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) is verifying 14nm etch equipment at SMIC and reported a 44% revenue increase to 5 billion yuan in the same period. AMEC's ultra-high-aspect-ratio CCP and ICP etchers — designed for 60:1 and 40:1 aspect ratios respectively — have entered mass production, with 90:1 tools in development targeting YMTC's next-generation 3D NAND.

In deposition, NAURA, Piotech, and AMEC have collectively pushed China's global market share from 2% to 7% over the past five years. NAURA's oxidation and diffusion furnaces now account for more than 60% of the equipment on SMIC's 28nm lines.

Fresh Capital Pouring Into Equipment Makers

TrendForce reported on March 30, 2026 that Chinese semiconductor equipment manufacturers are drawing significant new investment. Three deals illustrate the scale:

TBSTest Technology, a specialist in automated test equipment, closed a pre-IPO round exceeding 1.2 billion yuan backed by national industrial funds and government capital. iSABers completed a 500-million-yuan strategic round co-led by AMEC and Fortera Capital. Suzhou Gayao Semi raised nearly 100 million yuan in Series A funding to accelerate R&D and industrialization of gallium oxide epitaxial wafers and key CVD equipment for wide-bandgap semiconductors.

The investment surge reflects sustained demand from AI and high-performance computing, with localization accelerating across etch, deposition, bonding, and test equipment segments.

What This Means for Plasma Processing and Thin Film Deposition

For the global plasma processing and thin film deposition equipment supply chain, China's 80% plan signals a structural shift in the world's largest semiconductor equipment market.

Western etch leaders Lam Research and Tokyo Electron are losing share in China as NAURA and AMEC tools gain fab qualifications at 28nm and 14nm. Applied Materials faces similar pressure in deposition, where Chinese competitors are climbing from commodity processes toward advanced ALD and CVD platforms. The 50% mandate has already forced Chinese fabs to qualify domestic alternatives at a pace that would have been unthinkable five years ago.

Component and subsystem suppliers — makers of plasma sources, RF generators, vacuum pumps, mass flow controllers, sputtering targets, and process monitoring instruments — face a bifurcating market. Equipment sold into Chinese fabs will increasingly need to integrate with domestic platforms, while tools destined for TSMC, Samsung, and Intel fabs remain on Western architectures. Companies that supply into both ecosystems will need to manage parallel qualification programs, dual supply chains, and diverging technical standards.

The 7nm all-domestic equipment target by 2030 is the sharpest signal yet that China intends to build a fully parallel semiconductor equipment industry. Whether the timeline holds or slips, the capital is flowing and the mandates are binding. The equipment supply chain is splitting in two.