36Kr Exclusive | A Veteran in Semiconductor Equipment Launches a Wafer Bonding Company, with C-Venture Capital Leading the New Round of Financing

Author | Qiao Yujie

Editor | Yuan Silai

Hard Kr has learned that today, Shanghai SHW Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "SHW") announced the completion of a new round of financing, led by Yuanhe Puhua, with investments from many well - known investment institutions and industrial parties such as Hefei Industrial Investment, Waniu Capital, Junzilan Capital, Sassan Capital, Xichen Capital, Suzhou High - tech, Orient Jafu, and Jiangsu Damo Semiconductor.

Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Shanghai, SHW is a semiconductor equipment enterprise focusing on wafer permanent bonding technology and equipment. The company is committed to providing high - precision wafer bonding equipment and supporting solutions for fields such as advanced packaging, compound semiconductors, and new substrate manufacturing.

In terms of the team, Dr. Wang Xiaohan, the founder of the company, returned to China to start a business after studying and working in the United States for many years. He has been engaged in semiconductor equipment R & D for a long time and is one of the pioneering technical experts in this field in China. He once served as the general manager of Rudolph Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. The co - founder, Nagata Atsushi, has more than 35 years of experience in the semiconductor equipment industry. He once worked at Tokyo Electron (TEL) and is rich in experience in plasma processing and wafer bonding equipment R & D. The Japanese team he leads has a complete equipment R & D and production capacity and has delivered hybrid bonding equipment to overseas leading wafer fabs. Since its establishment, SHW has been targeting the global market, and its R & D and sales systems are built according to international standards.

From the perspective of the industry background, wafer bonding technology is becoming an important underlying process in the era of advanced packaging. So - called permanent bonding means that the wafer is not unbonded after bonding, and the formed connection has high mechanical strength, high thermal stability, and long - term reliability. Through permanent bonding, chips of different process nodes or different materials can be integrated in the same package, which is considered one of the important paths to continue to improve chip performance in the post - Moore era.

With the growth of AI computing power demand and the development of technologies such as high - bandwidth memory (HBM), advanced packaging is expanding rapidly. Data shows that in 2025, the global advanced packaging market scale has exceeded $45 billion, accounting for more than half of the overall packaging market. Against the background of the gradual popularization of 3D integration and Chiplet architecture, the demand for high - precision bonding equipment continues to rise. Among them, hybrid bonding equipment is considered one of the fastest - growing sub - categories.

However, there is still a large space for domestic substitution in this key field. Hybrid bonding equipment has long been dominated by overseas manufacturers, and the localization rate in the high - end field is low. On the other hand, most domestic equipment is still in the R & D or customer verification stage and has not reached the stability and maturity required for large - scale mass production.

In response to this market opportunity, SHW has built a five - core equipment system, including the fully automatic bonding equipment for XOI composite substrates, the fully automatic hybrid bonding equipment, the fully automatic BSPDN bonding equipment, the high - vacuum heterogeneous bonding equipment, and the D2W hybrid bonding wafer surface treatment system. It is also developing bonding interface detection and annealing equipment, supporting 4 - 12 - inch wafers and covering various application scenarios such as advanced packaging and substrate manufacturing.

(Image source/Enterprise)

It is worth noting that the company has independently developed IFB bonding technology. Founder Wang Xiaohan told Hard Kr that in the bonding process of many semiconductor materials, an oxide layer is likely to form on the bonding surface, which affects the electrical performance. High - vacuum bonding has the problems of low efficiency and rough interface. SHW innovatively uses plasma technology to remove the oxide layer and keep the interface smooth at the same time, thus achieving high - efficiency and high - quality bonding. This technology is currently mainly used in substrate production and is planned to be further extended to the hybrid bonding field in the future.

In terms of product progress, many of the company's equipment have entered the customer verification stage. Its fully automatic bonding equipment for XOI composite substrates is planned to be delivered to customers for verification in March 2026; the fully automatic hybrid bonding equipment has completed the production and functional verification of the first 12 - inch prototype and is being jointly optimized with target customers; the fully automatic BSPDN bonding equipment is expected to start customer sampling in June 2026; the high - vacuum heterogeneous bonding equipment is expected to complete the production of two prototypes within the year, and one of them will be sent to Japan for verification.

In addition, SHW has provided equipment sampling services for many leading wafer fabs at home and abroad, and has been recognized by customers in terms of precision control, stability, and performance indicators. It has also reached cooperation and procurement agreements with many mass - production customers and scientific research institutions in the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, and the Japanese market.

It is worth noting that different from most domestic enterprises that mainly rely on reverse engineering, SHW has adhered to forward - looking R & D of its own technology since its establishment and has simultaneously deployed metrology and inspection equipment dedicated to bonding processes.

Founder Wang Xiaohan said that when the bonding precision enters the nanometer level, the process and inspection equipment must be deeply coordinated. Thanks to his previous entrepreneurial experience, the company has formed a certain technical accumulation in metrology and inspection equipment and is cooperating with overseas leading enterprises to develop new inspection solutions to support more precise advanced bonding processes.

The company said that this round of financing is at a critical stage of completing the R & D of early prototypes and about to enter customer verification and market promotion. In the future, SHW will focus on promoting the verification and mass - production introduction of equipment at the wafer fab end and continue to advance the R & D of next - generation bonding equipment.