On October 13, 2026, a day before the opening of the "2026 Bay Chip Expo", CKL (hereinafter referred to as "CKL"), a manufacturer of ultra-high purity gas and fluid transmission systems, held a press conference to systematically elaborate on its "China for China" strategy. Core management members, including Global Vice President Kai Fai Ng, General Manager of China and the Philippines Kevin Ong, Sales Director Li Yongdai, Senior Operations Director Steven Yan, and Technical Director Kevin Shi, attended the event collectively, sharing comprehensive insights on the company's positioning, localization path, product capabilities, customer commitments, and future plans.
This marks the first time CKL has deeply interacted with the media and customers in the Chinese semiconductor market under its unified CKL brand image. A month prior, the company had just unveiled its new brand identity and slogan, "Beyond boundaries. Where technology thrives", while keeping the Chinese name unchanged. This brand refresh was explicitly positioned as a crucial step toward "further clarifying the business positioning for the Chinese market."
I. Core of CKL's China Strategy: "In China for China"
In his opening remarks, CKL Sales Director Li Yongdai directly highlighted the essence of the company's China strategy: "To sum it up in three sentences: R&D in China, manufacturing in China, and service in China."
The proposal of this strategy is based on a key market judgment. Citing forecast data from SEMI's World Fab Forecast, Li Yongdai pointed out that from 2026 to 2030, the incremental growth of the global equipment market is estimated to be about USD 30 billion, of which the Chinese region will account for USD 18 billion to USD 20 billion, meaning approximately 65% of the market increment will be in China. "Therefore, we proposed the 'China for China' strategy to shift our focus and place greater emphasis on the Chinese market."
CKL did not start from scratch. Since establishing its company in Shanghai in 2004, it has been deeply rooted in China for over 22 years, accumulating core engineering capabilities in ultra-high purity welding, flow path simulation, particle control, leak control, and automated integration. Its customer base covers major mainstream wafer fabs and leading equipment manufacturers globally, involving process nodes such as 12-inch and below logic, memory, silicon carbide, power semiconductors, and advanced packaging.
However, in the past, CKL China was more positioned as a manufacturing base. Today, this role is undergoing a fundamental transformation.
1. R&D Localization: Establishing a Center of Engineering Excellence (COE) to Take Full-Process Engineering Leadership
The primary focus for implementing CKL's "China for China" strategy is R&D localization. Li Yongdai announced that CKL will establish a Center of Engineering Excellence (COE) in Shanghai. Building on the existing team, it will strengthen localized R&D capabilities, build collaborative capabilities for the localized R&D technical team, and accelerate the upgrading of customers' semiconductor equipment.
"The Chinese team has taken full-process engineering leadership in gas supply systems and equipment systems," Li Yongdai emphasized. This means that the CKL China team can provide customers with integrated solutions, including design solutions for valves, blocks, modules, sub-assemblies, and corresponding subsystems, as well as advanced integration and assembly of platforms and process modules.
Answering reporters' questions, CKL Technical Director Kevin Shi further explained the working model of the COE team. He cited a case of a leading domestic customer: the customer had special gases that were prone to liquefaction at low temperatures, requiring minimal liquefaction during transmission. Initially, the customer planned to pull a separate system from the main system to control the heating module. However, based on modular design experience, the CKL team suggested canceling the direct control of the heating module from the main equipment. Instead, CKL would redesign it and integrate the control module into the existing gas control system. "This helped the customer avoid the trouble of extra control, and the customer ultimately accepted the suggestion. They saved costs, and we were able to introduce standardized design, achieving a win-win situation."
According to Li Yongdai, the core technical team of the COE currently has 15 to 16 members and will expand to around 30 people in the first half (H1) of next year, doubling in size. The sales team is also expanding simultaneously, and the overall staffing for the sales and engineering teams will be completed in the second half (H2) of next year.
2. Manufacturing and Supply Chain Localization
On the manufacturing front, CKL's localization strategy in China focuses on strengthening manufacturing capabilities in China and deeply integrating with the local supply chain.
CKL currently has two production plants in China, both located in the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Pudong, Shanghai, about a 15-minute drive from each other. The total area of the two plants is 15,300 square meters, including 7,000 square meters of cleanrooms, covering Class 100, Class 1,000, and Class 10,000 cleanliness levels.
CKL's main products include ultra-pure piping, orbital welding, and large-diameter manual welding, as well as gas and fluid delivery modules and heaters. The company also possesses in-house system integration capabilities, new product introduction (NPI), prototype design, design engineering, as well as supply chain management and quality management systems.
CKL Senior Operations Director Steven Yan also specifically highlighted the piping welding capabilities of its Chinese plants: "The welding workshop is now defined as a welding center, with a capacity of approximately 10,000 pieces per week. It not only meets the system integration needs of our assembly workshop but also independently provides piping welded components to customers." The large-diameter welding workshop has a total of 22 welding stations, which have extremely high requirements for precision and process, especially manual welding, which requires controlling thermal strain deformation. "After more than 20 years of development, CKL has formed a mature training system and talent retention system. Senior welders are also our core assets."
In addition, the assembly workshop of Plant 2 introduced heater cable products in 2018, making it the company's third-largest business unit (BU). The plant has also reserved an area of approximately 600 square meters for subsequent new projects, including valve assembly or other integrated products.
In addition to its domestic manufacturing plants, Li Yongdai frankly stated that CKL also possesses extensive global supply chain resources, which is a significant competitive advantage over competitors. However, given the extremely fierce competition in the domestic gas transmission field, the company must develop new domestic suppliers and advance localization while leveraging its global resources.
To this end, CKL has established a Tiger Team specifically to advance the localization of components. Li Yongdai revealed specific progress: "Currently, the localization rate of gas cabinets has reached about 50%, with the goal of reaching 80% by the end of this year." At the same time, the company establishes corresponding safety stock according to customer needs to accelerate service and response speeds.
3. Service Localization: Rapid Response
At the service level, compared to foreign customers, CKL has put forward three unchanging commitments to Chinese customers: quality standards remain unchanged, manufacturing process standards remain unchanged, and the service provided by the service team remains unchanged.
Li Yongdai emphasized that although CKL's cooperation model with domestic and foreign customers is basically the same, there are some obvious differences: "For example, orders from foreign customers contain relatively more mature products; domestic orders have more customized products, and technical communication is closer." In addition, domestic customers have higher requirements for response speed, "If a customer changes a product today, they expect to receive it tomorrow."
Li Yongdai frankly admitted that although CKL has accumulated over 20 years of technical experience, with solid technology and quality, and a top-tier service team, compared to some domestic competitors, the latter may have relatively faster delivery and more advantageous pricing. Especially in terms of lead time and service response speed, domestic competitors are faster. However, to meet customers' requirements for lead time and response speed, some competitors sacrifice their own processes, making customers feel that the service has improved, but this is obviously not a sustainable approach.
In response, CKL's strategy is: while advancing localization, assign a dedicated team to interface with each customer, maintain existing standardized processes as much as possible, and allow changes within a certain range through the Fast Track channel to quickly respond to customer needs. This is also why CKL established the COE engineering and technical service team in China, to respond quickly right next to the customers. At the same time, the COE team ensures supply chain stability through modularization.
"We already have mature and stable advantages in quality and technology. By leveraging these advantages to make up for our shortcomings, we believe we will win the favor of more customers," Li Yongdai said.
II. Competitive Strategy: "Platformization + Customization"
When analyzing changes in customer needs, Li Yongdai proposed a vivid "pentagon" theory: "Customer needs have clearly shifted from a single 'I just want this product' to integrated requirements for quality, delivery, service, price, and technology, which is equivalent to a 'pentagon'. In the past, they only needed one side; now, it's a pentagon."
Facing this change, CKL's competitive strategy is "platformization + customization." Li Yongdai explained: "When customers upgrade and modify products, most of the foundation is retained, and only a small part is modified. We achieve stable supply chain output for the foundational part; for the changing part, through early introduction of design and quality, we jointly develop with customers and implement product work in advance."
The core support for this strategy is the early engineering involvement of the COE team. Li Yongdai emphasized: "We don't just 'provide whatever product the customer tells us they want'; instead, we jointly develop and design with customers in the early stages. Design, technical, and quality personnel participate together to propose quality standards and eliminate risks in the early stages, reducing potential issues of rework, re-repair, and lead time delays in the later stages."
Regarding how to cope with the standardization of interfaces from different equipment OEMs, Kevin Shi responded that different processes (such as etching and chemical vapor deposition) have vastly different requirements for gas types and categories, and different equipment manufacturers also adopt different interface and protocol standards for controlling system complexity.
CKL's solution is: "Translate the communication protocol standards for different interfaces from different customers into a modularizable form. Downstream to actuators and components, use universal communication signal interfaces. Through this part, complete the signal interface conversion for different customers, and then apply it to our subsystems to achieve standard modular control."
He further explained that the basic requirements for gas control—gas pressure, flow rate, and temperature—are the same, while different main systems adopt different interface standards. "As long as we reasonably convert them into signals recognizable by standard modules through the control module during the circuit design process, we can meet the needs of different customers and follow the specifications for standardized module manufacturing."
III. 22 Years of Experience: Building a Strong Competitive Advantage
Starting in 2004, CKL initially provided large-scale mass production services for mature products of international giants. Gradually, through cooperation and learning, it accumulated extensive experience from design to trial production, small-scale production, and then large-scale mass production, along with interspersed quality control and raw material management.
"I believe these experiences will provide additional support for Chinese semiconductor equipment manufacturers. The most important part is to start from the design stage, conduct design communication and coordination with local Chinese customers and main equipment suppliers, come up with a consistent control plan, and then enter small-batch trial production. We have five stages, which is the so-called NPI stage. In different stages, customer confirmation, engineering validation, testing, and stability confirmation are conducted for small-batch trial production products. After small-batch production is completed, it enters large-scale mass production." Kevin Shi believes that these experiences represent a significant difference between CKL and other competitors in terms of experience and management control, and also bring the advantage of foreign experience to Chinese local customers.
In his speech, Kai Fai also stated: "Currently, Chinese semiconductor equipment customers need not only products or solutions that meet requirements but also partners who can understand on-site needs, respond quickly, and continuously solve engineering problems. CKL hopes to combine its more than 20 years of technical and engineering experience with the Chinese team's understanding of local customer needs, serving the Chinese semiconductor equipment industry in the long term with more efficient collaboration and more reliable delivery."
Regarding future development plans in the Chinese market, CKL has provided a clear roadmap. Short-term plans include expanding production at the Shanghai base and establishing the COE Center of Engineering Excellence to be closer to customers and shorten service time. Medium- to long-term plans involve conducting joint development with customers, mainly focusing on next-generation gas cabinets and gas transmission systems, providing integrated design solutions and system integration assembly support.
"We hope to truly become the preferred local partner for the Chinese semiconductor industry in system integration, as well as gas and chemical delivery in the future," Li Yongdai said in his concluding remarks.
Conclusion
From establishing a plant in Shanghai in 2004 to launching the "China for China" strategy in 2026 with the new brand image of CKL, CKL is completing the identity transition from a "manufacturing base" to an "engineering and advanced system integration partner". The localization rate of gas cabinets advancing from 50% to 80%, the COE team doubling from 15 to 30 people, the three unchanging commitments, and the Fast Track rapid response mechanism—this series of figures and initiatives outline CKL's determination and path in deeply cultivating the Chinese semiconductor equipment industry. As its brand slogan says, "Beyond boundaries. Where technology thrives", whether CKL can truly become the preferred local partner in the field of system integration for Chinese semiconductor equipment will ultimately be answered by the market.
Editor: Langkejian, Zhizhixun