Chinese Etch and Deposition Vendors Surge in Q1 2026: Piotech Revenue Up 57%, NAURA Up 26%, ACM Research Up 33%

By NineScrolls Team · 2026-05-03 · 5 min read · Industry

1. Q1 2026 Headlines from China's Big Three

The first quarter of 2026 closed with a clear signal that Chinese semiconductor equipment vendors are accelerating, not stalling, under U.S. export controls. NAURA Technology Group, Piotech, and ACM Research all posted double-digit Q1 revenue growth, with each company strengthening its position in the wafer fabrication equipment (WFE) categories most relevant to plasma etch and thin film deposition.

According to a market analysis published May 1, 2026, Chinese equipment vendors — including NAURA, AMEC, ACM Research, Hwatsing, Piotech, and Kingsemi — collectively accounted for 6.5% of the global $41.4 billion WFE market in 2025, up from 5.6% in 2024 and just 1.2% in 2021.

The Q1 2026 results suggest that share trajectory is steepening, not flattening, even as Washington tightens controls on advanced-node tooling shipments to mainland China.

2. Piotech: PECVD and ALD Drive 57% Revenue Jump

Shenyang Piotech (SSE: 688072), the leading domestic supplier of plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD) and atomic layer deposition (ALD) tools, posted Q1 2026 revenue of RMB 1.11 billion, up 56.97% year-over-year. Net profit reached RMB 570.6 million, reversing a year-ago loss.

The company attributed the jump to advanced equipment sales — specifically PECVD and ALD platforms shipping into domestic 3D NAND, DRAM, and advanced packaging lines. Piotech has now doubled its installed PECVD share at YMTC's 3D NAND production lines from 15% to 30%.

Operating cash flow turned negative on procurement and payroll growth, but the topline trajectory and margin expansion confirm Piotech is converting design wins into reactor shipments at scale.

3. NAURA: 26% Revenue Growth, R&D Squeezes Margins

NAURA Technology Group (SZ: 002371), China's largest semiconductor equipment maker and now the world's sixth-largest WFE supplier by sales, reported Q1 2026 revenue up 26% year-over-year. Net profit rose only 3.42%, with elevated R&D spending compressing the bottom line.

NAURA's portfolio spans plasma etch, PVD, CVD, thermal processing, and wet cleaning systems. The company holds roughly a 25% share of China's etch and deposition WFE market and is currently testing etch tools on SMIC's 7nm production line.

NAURA's order backlog remains scheduled through Q1 2027, providing visibility on shipment cadence as Chinese fabs push for higher domestic equipment ratios under government mandates targeting 70% local tooling by 2027.

4. ACM Research: $225M–$230M Quarter, Shipments Up 50%

ACM Research (NASDAQ: ACMR), which holds a 74% stake in ACM Shanghai, pre-announced Q1 2026 revenue of $225 million to $230 million on April 27, 2026 — year-over-year growth of 31% to 33%. Preliminary total shipments hit $233 million to $238 million, up 49% to 52% YoY. Full results are due May 7, 2026.

ACMR reaffirmed full-year 2026 revenue guidance of $1.08 billion to $1.175 billion. Beyond its core wet-cleaning franchise, ACM Research has been expanding into PECVD, ALD, and Track applications. The Saturn series PECVD platform shipped its first SiCN tool in late April 2026, marking its entry into a category dominated by Lam Research, Applied Materials, and Tokyo Electron.

Worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached $135.1 billion in 2025, up 15% year-over-year, according to SEMI data released April 7, 2026. Chinese tool makers' 6.5% slice of that pie translates to roughly $8.8 billion — modest in absolute terms, but the trajectory is what matters: Chinese vendors have grown WFE share from 1.2% to 6.5% in just four years.

Beijing's policy lever is straightforward. Reports indicate domestic chip equipment adoption inside China hit 35% in 2025, beating internal targets, with NAURA and AMEC leading the charge. The 2027 target is 70%. AMEC's 2025 thin-film tool revenue alone jumped 224% year-over-year to RMB 506 million as Chinese fabs accelerated LPCVD and ALD substitution.

Even TSMC's Nanjing fab has placed orders with AMEC for 5nm dielectric etch tools, with deliveries scheduled in Q1 2026 — a notable validation event for a domestic plasma etch supplier.

6. What This Means for Plasma Processing and Thin Film Deposition

Plasma processing equipment. Etch and PECVD are precisely the WFE categories where Chinese vendors are gaining the most ground. NAURA's plasma etch platforms are now under qualification at SMIC 7nm; AMEC's dielectric etchers are entering TSMC Nanjing; Piotech's PECVD reactors are taking share inside YMTC's 3D NAND stacks. For plasma-source vendors, RF generators, matching networks, and chamber-component suppliers, the customer base is bifurcating into Western and Chinese OEM ecosystems with increasingly distinct supply chains.

Thin film deposition systems. ALD and PECVD are the two highest-growth segments inside the global $135B WFE market, and both are central to gate-all-around (GAA) logic at 2nm and HBM4 memory ramps. Piotech's 57% Q1 jump reflects this: domestic Chinese fabs are deploying ALD and PECVD tools at the same time Samsung, SK hynix, Micron, TSMC, and Intel are doing so. The structural demand is global, but the supplier mix inside China is shifting hard toward Piotech, NAURA, and AMEC.

Equipment supply chain. The Chinese WFE buildout creates parallel demand for plasma sources, sputter targets, vacuum components, gas delivery systems, and process monitoring — much of it sourced domestically under Beijing's localization push. Yttrium oxide chamber coatings, MFCs, RF feedthroughs, and quartzware are all categories where Chinese supply is thickening alongside domestic OEM growth. Western component vendors with China exposure should expect a continued bifurcation between export-controlled advanced-node fabs and a domestically supplied mature/legacy node ecosystem that is now scaling rapidly.