Industry Pain Point: A Key Material Subject to "Choke Points"
"We once had to shut down production for three weeks due to waiting for an international shipment of a ceramic component," confessed a procurement manager at a semiconductor equipment company. In critical semiconductor processes such as dry etching and thin-film deposition, yttrium oxide ceramic is an irreplaceable material choice due to its exceptional plasma corrosion resistance, high purity, and excellent thermal stability.
However, for a long time, high-purity, high-performance yttrium oxide ceramic has been monopolized by a few companies in Japan, the United States, and other countries. This has led to issues such as high prices, long delivery cycles (typically 3–6 months), and slow responses to customization needs. Particularly against the backdrop of the ongoing reshaping of global supply chains, achieving independent control over this critical material has become a common concern for domestic high-end manufacturing industries, including semiconductors, new energy, and healthcare.
Technological Breakthrough: The Localization Journey from "Laboratory" to "Production Line"
Recently, domestic material enterprises have made a series of advancements in the preparation technology of yttrium oxide ceramic through the optimization of tape casting and gas pressure sintering processes:
Purity Breakthrough: Stable mass production of products with varying purity levels of 99.9%–99.99% has been achieved, with key impurity elements (such as Fe, Na, K, etc.) controlled at the ppm level, meeting the stringent cleanliness requirements of semiconductor equipment for materials.
Performance Improvement: Plasma corrosion resistance has been improved by more than 10 times compared to traditional alumina ceramics, with a service life exceeding 3,000 hours in CF4/O2 plasma environments. Third-party testing confirms that key parameters such as dielectric constant (ε≈10–12) and thermal expansion coefficient (7.5–8.5×10⁻⁶/K) have reached the level of international counterparts.
Size Breakthrough: Successful preparation of large integrated yttrium oxide ceramic components with diameters exceeding 500mm has addressed challenges related to deformation and cracking during the sintering of large-sized parts.
Market Value: Full Lifecycle Cost Advantages Become Evident
For manufacturing enterprises, material selection has shifted from a simple consideration of "procurement cost" to an evaluation of "full lifecycle value".
Technological Collaborative Innovation: Domestic technical teams can fine-tune material formulations based on customers' specific process conditions (gas environment, temperature curves, frequency parameters, etc.), providing customized solutions. This level of in-depth collaboration is difficult for international suppliers to offer.