In 2026, the global semiconductor equipment market is experiencing a new wave of growth.
The latest forecast by SEMI shows that global semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales are expected to reach USD 165.9 billion in 2026, a year-on-year increase of 23.2%, setting a new historical record. Combined with forecasts from multiple third-party institutions, the Chinese semiconductor equipment market accounts for approximately 32% to 35% of the global market, remaining one of the most important semiconductor equipment markets globally.
However, for domestic semiconductor equipment enterprises, market growth is merely an external opportunity.
The ability to truly enter customer production lines, achieve stable mass production, continuous delivery, and long-term iteration is the key to determining the competitiveness of an equipment enterprise.
As domestic semiconductor equipment steadily advances towards high-end and large-scale development, the focus of industry competition is also shifting.
In the past, the focus was more on "whether a piece of equipment can be built"; now, there is increasing attention to comprehensive capabilities such as process adaptation, customer validation, engineering delivery, supply chain assurance, and continuous iteration.
In other words, domestic semiconductor equipment is gradually shifting from single-point breakthroughs to systematic capability competition.
Against this backdrop, the 2026 Greater Bay Area Semiconductor Industry Ecosystem Expo (GBA IC Expo), held from October 14 to 16, has become an important window to observe the evolution of the domestic semiconductor equipment industry.
Making its debut at the expo, Zhejiang Xinhui Equipment Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xinhui Equipment") brought an equipment and technology layout covering seven major business directions.
Founded in 2018, this semiconductor equipment enterprise is also exploring the path of multi-business synergy and platform-oriented development, starting from the industrialization of its core products.
Convergence of Seven Major Businesses: Xinhui Equipment Shifts from "Single Products" to "Portfolios"
At this GBA IC Expo, Xinhui Equipment showcased its equipment and technologies across seven major business directions: crystal growth, thin film deposition, grinding and thinning, polishing and micro-treatment, optical metrology, chemical metrology, and chip testing.
Viewed solely from the exhibition floor, this appears to be a comprehensive showcase of a product matrix.
However, set against the backdrop of accelerating platformization in the domestic equipment industry, the underlying logic deserves more attention.
From the perspective of business composition, Xinhui Equipment's layout can be roughly divided into two directions.
One main thread is building multi-stage equipment capabilities around semiconductor wafer manufacturing.
Crystal growth equipment serves the preparation of large-size silicon single-crystal materials;
Grinding and thinning, as well as polishing and micro-treatment equipment, are oriented towards precision wafer processing;
Optical metrology and chemical metrology provide support for material manufacturing and process quality control from the dimensions of physical morphology, surface defects, and trace contamination, respectively.
These equipment pieces appear to belong to different process stages, but ultimately point to the same core issue:
How to stably and precisely process a piece of silicon material into high-quality wafers that meet the requirements of subsequent chip manufacturing.
The other main thread is continuing to extend towards memory chip testing and advanced material equipment.
The chip testing business focuses on the testing needs of memory products such as NAND and DRAM; the thin film deposition business targets application scenarios such as SiC coating, processing of key semiconductor components, and advanced material preparation.
This means that Xinhui Equipment's business boundaries have not just stopped at a single equipment category, but are attempting to build a more complete product portfolio around multiple stages such as material manufacturing, processing, metrology, and testing.
The significance of platformization lies precisely here.
When building a production line, a semiconductor manufacturing enterprise often needs to introduce multiple equipment suppliers simultaneously. The more suppliers there are, the higher the complexity of process matching, interface coordination, engineering services, and validation management.
If an equipment enterprise can provide products across multiple adjacent process stages and form relatively unified engineering services and customer synergy capabilities, then for customers, what they gain is not just "buying a few more machines," but lower coordination costs and higher introduction efficiency.
Therefore, the true premise for a multi-product layout to be valuable is not an increase in the number of equipment, but the ability to form synergy among different businesses.
This is also what makes the seven major business directions of Xinhui Equipment more worthy of observation.
From Mass Production Validation to Scale Delivery: The True Barrier for Equipment Enterprises Lies at the Customer Site
The semiconductor equipment industry has a very typical characteristic:
Developing a prototype is only the first step.
From prototype development to process validation, and then to customer introduction, stable mass production, and subsequent continuous optimization, a piece of semiconductor equipment often needs to go through a long industrialization cycle.
Because what customers truly care about is not just whether the equipment "can work."
It also includes:
Whether the process results are stable;
Whether performance drifts after long-term operation;
How the consistency is between different batches of wafers;
Whether the equipment availability can meet mass production requirements;
And whether the supplier can respond quickly when problems arise.
Therefore, the true barrier for semiconductor equipment companies is often built on customer production lines.
Over the past few years, core equipment such as Xinhui Equipment's 12-inch silicon single-crystal furnaces and NAND CP testing products have crossed the critical stage from prototype to customer production lines and achieved batch application.
According to company data, as of June 2026, Xinhui Equipment's cumulative shipments of single-crystal furnaces have exceeded 100 units, and cumulative deliveries of memory testing equipment have surpassed 200 units.
The two types of core products have formed strong market competitiveness in the domestic market and have also become an important foundation for Xinhui Equipment to continue expanding into other equipment categories.
What is truly worth looking at here is not just the "100 units" and "200 units" themselves.
More importantly, the two core products have accumulated a set of replicable industrialization experience for the company through the processes of customer synergy, process validation, mass production delivery, and after-sales service.
For an equipment enterprise expanding its product boundaries, this experience is crucial.
Because the hardest part of new product development is often not designing the machine, but understanding what performance indicators and validation processes customers actually need, and how a piece of equipment can truly integrate into a mass production line.
Once this capability is formed, there is an opportunity to transfer it to new equipment directions.
Starting from Two Core Products, Seven Business Lines Begin to Gradually Enter the Validation Stage
Currently, Xinhui Equipment is replicating its previous industrialization experience in single-crystal furnaces and memory testing equipment to other business directions.
In the direction of grinding and thinning, as well as polishing and micro-treatment, the company has formed a series of equipment for 200mm and 300mm wafer processing, and continues to optimize around processing uniformity, process stability, and mass production efficiency to provide customers with high-precision surface processing solutions.
In the direction of optical metrology and chemical metrology, Xinhui Equipment is deploying equipment for wafer appearance, hidden cracks, and edge detection on the one hand, and developing fully automatic detection equipment solutions for metal, ion, and chemical micro-contamination needs on the other hand.
The two types of metrology capabilities correspond to "visible defects" and "invisible contamination," respectively.
These are also two completely different but equally important issues in semiconductor manufacturing quality control.
In the thin film deposition direction, the company deploys 6-inch deposition CVD, SiC coating CVD, and other equipment, targeting large-size adaptation, high-uniformity film formation, and scale production needs.
From these businesses, it can be seen that Xinhui Equipment is not infinitely replicating products around a single technology platform, but expanding along stages such as wafer manufacturing, material processing, metrology, and memory testing.
This also means that what it truly needs to validate in the future is not just whether a certain new equipment can enter customers.
But rather:
Whether the R&D, validation, delivery, and service capabilities formed on the two core products in the past can be repeatedly replicated across more equipment categories.
Domestic Equipment Competition Enters the Next Stage: More Products Do Not Equal Platformization
From a broader industry background, Xinhui Equipment's debut at this GBA IC Expo also reflects a round of changes occurring in the domestic semiconductor equipment industry.
Over the past decade, the Chinese semiconductor equipment industry first addressed the transition "from zero to one."
An enterprise often starts by cutting into a segmented equipment category, completes validation on customer production lines, and then gradually expands to adjacent processes.
As an increasing number of domestic equipment completes industrialization, this phase is undergoing a shift.
Future industry competition is increasingly likely to revolve around two keywords:
Scaling and Platformization.
Scaling solves whether a company can still maintain stable product quality, delivery cycles, and customer service after a piece of equipment goes from dozens to hundreds of units.
Platformization, on the other hand, solves whether R&D, supply chain, software, engineering services, and customer resources can truly be reused after product lines increase from one to multiple.
This is also why multiple products do not naturally equal a platform-oriented company.
The technical foundations, process requirements, and customer certification systems of different equipment may vary greatly.
The more products there are, the higher the requirements placed on the enterprise's R&D management, supply chain synergy, quality system, and on-site service capabilities.
If every product line requires the completely independent rebuilding of R&D, manufacturing, and service systems, then having more products may actually result in higher organizational complexity.
True platformization, however, means that some underlying capabilities can be continuously reused.
Including customer resources, engineering teams, supply chain systems, quality standards, R&D methods, and service networks.
Only when these capabilities can be replicated across product lines will "multi-business" truly transform into "platform capabilities."
From Single-Product Breakthrough to Systematic Capability: Xinhui Equipment is Taking a Key Step
Therefore, from an industrial perspective, the most noteworthy aspect of Xinhui Equipment's debut at this GBA IC Expo is not the simultaneous appearance of seven types of products on the booth.
What is truly important is:
The company is attempting to replicate the experience of its mass-production-validated single-crystal furnaces and memory testing equipment to more semiconductor equipment directions.
From single-product breakthrough to scale delivery;
From two core products to seven major business directions;
And then from product expansion, further moving towards the synergy of R&D, supply chain, validation, and service systems.
This is an inevitable challenge that domestic semiconductor equipment enterprises must address after reaching a certain stage of development.
For Xinhui Equipment, the previous stage proved "whether core products can enter customer production lines."
What needs to be proved next is:
Whether this capability can be continuously replicated across more products, more customers, and more complex process scenarios.
If the answer is affirmative, then the significance of the seven major business directions is not just about having more product lines.
It will mean that Xinhui Equipment is truly beginning to advance from an equipment enterprise with advantageous single products to a semiconductor equipment platform with multi-business synergy capabilities.