BEIJING, November 14 (TMTPost)—China’s leading lithography machine manufacturer Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (Group ) Co, Ltd (SMEE) is making progress in initial public offering (IPO).

Credit：TMTPost

TMTPost App learned Chinese securities firm CSC Financial Co., Ltd., released the tenth phase report of SMEE IPO and pre-listing tutoring process. The report said SMEE plans to apply for IPO at the open market on mainland China and CSC Financial serves as the tutoring financial advisor.  SMEE has undergone nine rounds of pre-listing tutoring since 2021, according to the website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), the top securities regulator.

TMTPost found the recent report suggested SMEE is expected to list in exchanges on mainland China next year, including the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market, namely, the Shanghai Stock Exchange Science and Technology Innovation Board. The Shanghai-based company could be valued at nearly RMB10 billion through the listing, given the price to sales ratio and about one twentieth of market valuation of ASML Holding NV, the top market player.

The report about SMEE’s ninth round of pre-listing tutoring added CSC Financial’s further understanding about SMEE’s basic information, its implementation of internal control systems, its business development and order growth, future development strategic planning, main business performance, and research and development (R&D) progress of key technologies.

The recent report said SMEE has created relatively standardized corporate governance structures and internal control systems, but its formulation and actual implementation of the internal control system still has a certain gap with the standards for listed companies, and the company still needs to further improve its financial standardization and needs to keep ongoing operation in accordance with the existing internal control system.

In the recent report, CSC Financial pointed out the main problems of SMEE that still exist and relevant solutions include the problems discovered and solved in the early tutoring work and the existing problems. For example, SMEE has not completed the fundraising plan for its investment project and estimates of the exact funding needs.

Established in 2022, SMEE is a high-tech company that attracted investments from a number of domestic industrial groups and investment firms. SMEE is mainly engaged in the development, design, manufacturing, sales and technical services of semiconductor equipment, pan-semiconductor equipment and high-end intelligent equipment, and its equipments are widely used in integrated circuit front-end, advanced packaging, FPD panels, MEMS, LED, Power Devices and other manufacturing fields.

SMEE is deemed as China's only producer of lithography machines used in semiconductor manufacturing, making it the country's only potential competitor to the Netherlands' world-leading lithography machine maker ASML Holding NV. According to the official website, SMEE now offers four lithography tools including the SSX 600 Series stepper for IC front-end manufacturing, the SSB 500 Series stepper for IC back-end advanced packaging, the SSB 300 Series stepper for LED/MEMS/power devices, and the SSB 200 Series stepper for TFT exposure. Among them, the SSX 600 Series are capable of producing chips at the 90 nanometer (nm) node standard, and the technology is sufficient for low-end chips useful of some power-management purposes, though is well behind ASML and Japanese rivals.

In an article outlined outlook of China’s local lithography machine making published late July, the state-run newspaper Securities Daily admitted a very challenging environment under the West World’s tech curbs as the global market is dominated by ASML and two Japanese makers Nikon and Canon, more importantly, ASML almost occupies the whole market of high-end Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) light for lithography machine. However, the article noted there are some encouraging progresses Chinese institutions and companies has made these years, including those from SMEE. SMEE has been committed to developing the immersion lithography machine capable of producing chips at 28 nm node, and is anticipated to deliver China’s first home-grown SSA/800-10W lithography tool by the end of this year, according to the article.