In the etching chambers of semiconductor manufacturing, plasma bombards chamber walls and components at speeds of several kilometers-or even tens of thousands of meters-per second. Parts such as showerheads, chamber liners, and wafer susceptors must not only withstand the chemical attack of highly corrosive gases, but also maintain absolute cleanliness and dimensional stability under severe thermal shock and electric field environments. Should even a single particle detach or a trace amount of impurities be released, the entire wafer may be scrapped. Under such extreme conditions, high-purity silicon carbide ceramics (purity ≥99.5%, with semiconductor-grade reaching above 99.99%)-possessing hardness approaching that of diamond, excellent thermal conductivity, extreme chemical inertness, near-theoretical density, and no open porosity-have become the undisputed "skeletal material" for semiconductor equipment.
Currently, SiC components for semiconductor applications are primarily manufactured via two routes. The first is the powder sintering route (SSiC/HPSiC), which densifies high-purity powders at elevated temperatures. This approach can accommodate complex shapes while maintaining cost efficiency, making it the core material for high-temperature, clean handling parts such as wafer boats, susceptors, and robotic arms. The second is the chemical vapor deposition (CVD-SiC) route, which grows material atom layer by atom layer from gaseous precursors. The resulting products can achieve purities as high as 99.9995%, with no grain boundaries, ultra-high density, and strong resistance to plasma bombardment-representing the ultimate solution for plasma corrosion resistance. Critical consumables such as ceramic showerheads are often produced by this process, and their quality directly affects wafer etching uniformity and overall yield.
However, the technical barriers for CVD-SiC showerheads are extremely high. Every step-from the preparation of semiconductor-grade powder raw materials with purity ≥99.99%, to densification sintering to near-theoretical density and no open porosity, to the precise atom-by-atom control of CVD growth, and finally to precision micro-hole machining-lies deep in the realm of advanced processing. For a long time, the market for such components has been firmly dominated by overseas enterprises. Yet, as domestic semiconductor manufacturing processes continue to advance toward more critical nodes, the demand for localized production of equipment parts has become increasingly urgent. The capability for large-scale fabrication and high-precision machining of these components has therefore become one of the core strategic directions being intensively pursued across the entire semiconductor industry chain, from upstream suppliers to downstream manufacturers.