Recently, TechInsights announced the list of the 2025 Global Semiconductor Supplier Awards, and the leaders in each segment stood out, from customer service to technological innovation:
1. Customer service field: scale and focus enterprises compete with each other
Top 10 large enterprises: Advantest, Edwards, ASMPT Limited and other international giants dominate the list, among which Advantest ranks first with its full-process service response speed and technical support capabilities, followed by Edwards with the delivery stability brought by the global supply chain layout.
Top 10 Focused Enterprises: FormFactor took the lead with the high specialization of probe card technology services, EV Group, AMEC and other companies ranked among the top with their customized service capabilities in the field of advanced packaging equipment, and Jiangsu ASIA Electronics, as a Chinese mainland enterprise on the list, demonstrated the service breakthrough of local suppliers in the market segment.
(1) Technical equipment and manufacturing field: Precise card position driven by innovation
Packaging and testing equipment: Advantest has won this award for many consecutive years, and its high-precision testing machine products cover more than 90% of the world's logic chip manufacturers, forming a double moat of technical barriers and customer stickiness.
Test Subsystem: FormFactor wins with the high yield and rapid iteration ability of probe station products, especially in the field of sub-5nm advanced process testing, with a market share of more than 60%.
Wafer Fabrication Equipment (WFE) Subsystem: Edwards' vacuum equipment technology has become a "rigid demand" for semiconductor manufacturing, with a global penetration rate of 85% in lithography and etching equipment, and significant supply chain resilience advantages.
Fab Equipment & Specialty Chip Manufacturing: EV Group won two awards for its bonder technology, increasing its market share of its equipment in advanced packaging (e.g., chiplets) and compound semiconductors to 45% and 38%, respectively, precisely aligned with the industry's demand for heterogeneous integration and RF chips.
WFE basic chip manufacturing: AMEC (China Micro Corporation), as a leading semiconductor equipment enterprise in China, has broken the monopoly of overseas manufacturers in the field of basic chip manufacturing equipment by virtue of the cost-effective advantages of etching machine products in the mature process market.
Pictured: TechInsights announces 2025 Global Semiconductor Supplier Award winners
2. Commonality of award-winning enterprises: a double victory of technical barriers and ecological construction
From the list, it is not difficult to find that the leading edge of the leading enterprises is not caused by a single factor, but the result of the collaborative evolution of technology, service and ecology:
(1) Technology moat: anchoring the next generation of industry needs
Technology bets on AI and advanced packaging: FormFactor, EV Group and other companies increased their R&D investment in AI chip testing and chiplet packaging equipment as early as 2020. For example, FormFactor's AI-driven automatic probe station improves testing efficiency by 30%, which is perfectly adapted to the GPU testing needs of customers such as NVIDIA and AMD. EV Group's 3D bonding machine has become the core equipment of TSMC and Intel's advanced packaging production lines.
Supply chain technology resilience: Through the acquisition of Pfeiffer Vacuum, a German vacuum pump company, Edwards has built a full-chain technology system covering R&D, manufacturing, and maintenance, which can still ensure a 95% on-time order delivery rate even in the context of global parts shortages.
(2) Customer service innovation: from "equipment supplier" to "solution partner"
Customized service capabilities: Advantest provides the "joint development of test solutions" model for customers such as Samsung of South Korea and YMTC of China, which shortens the equipment commissioning cycle from 3 months to 1.5 months, and increases customer satisfaction by 40%.
Localized service network: Jiangsu Yadian has set up 12 technical service centers in Chinese mainland to provide 2-hour on-site response services for the needs of local chip manufacturers in small batches and multiple varieties, which is far more efficient than overseas competitors.
(3) Ecological synergy: bind the head customers with the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain
Deeply bound wafer fabs: ASML, EV Group and other companies have established "joint R&D labs" with TSMC and Samsung, for example, ASML's EUV lithography machine was developed early to introduce TSMC process engineers to participate in the design, and this "demand front" model ensures the synchronous iteration of equipment and process technology.
Vertical integration of the industrial chain: AMEC invests in semiconductor material companies to optimize the compatibility of etching machines, photoresists and thin film deposition materials, so that the yield of customers' production lines can be increased by 5%-8%, forming a synergistic competitiveness of "equipment + materials".
3. Industry trend insight: from single competition to ecological wrestling
This year's list reflects three major signals in the semiconductor industry:
1. Upgrade of technology competition dimension: The simple competition of equipment performance parameters has shifted to the competition of "equipment + software + service" integrated solutions. For example, Advantest's test equipment is equipped with AI fault diagnosis software, which can automatically identify more than 90% of test anomalies, reducing customers' dependence on manual debugging.
2. Regional supply chain reconstruction: The rise of local suppliers in China, South Korea and other regions has accelerated, and the inclusion of Jiangsu Yadian, AMEC and other companies on the list indicates that the Asian supply chain has the strength to compete head-on with European and American companies in specific fields, which is closely related to the localization demand under the trend of "deglobalization" of the global semiconductor industry chain.
3. Sustainable development orientation: Edwards, Lam Research and other enterprises through equipment energy-saving technology innovation (such as vacuum equipment energy consumption reduction of 25%), in line with the EU "Chips Act" requirements for green manufacturing, such "technology + ESG" double excellent enterprises are getting more head customers procurement tilt.
IV. Conclusion
The 2025 list of winners is not only a list of honors, but also a guide to the survival of the semiconductor industry under the interweaving of technological iteration and geopolitics. The practice of leading enterprises has proved that at a time when Moore's Law is slowing down and the R&D cost of advanced processes is soaring, only by predicting future needs with technology, building customer trust with services, and resisting supply chain risks with ecology can we continue to lead in this "winner-takes-all" industry competition. For Chinese semiconductor equipment companies, the breakthroughs of AMEC and Jiangsu Yadian have torn up the market gap, and how to narrow the gap with international giants in the field of advanced process equipment will be the core battlefield of the next decade.
