Skyrocketing by 550%, the strongest "shovel seller" in the chip sector with a market value of 180 billion has delivered its expected performance.
The full-scale explosion of the AI industry has driven the global semiconductor sector into a brand-new super cycle.
From memory chips and chip design to wafer manufacturing, packaging and testing, all links across the entire semiconductor industrial chain continue to strengthen. Amid this round of industrial dividends, the biggest beneficiary is not chip design or manufacturing enterprises, but the "shovel sellers" of upstream equipment in the industrial chain, among which Changchuan Technology is a core representative.
As a core enterprise in the domestic semiconductor testing equipment sector, Changchuan Technology has built a complete product matrix relying on the two-wheel drive model of endogenous R&D superimposed on extensional mergers and acquisitions, with its business covering four core categories: testers, sorters, automated equipment and AOI optical inspection equipment.
At present, the company's products have successfully entered the supply chains of a number of leading domestic and foreign packaging and testing manufacturers such as JCET, Huatech, TFME, Silan Microelectronics, China Resources Microelectronics and ASE Group, realizing large-scale import substitution for the core categories of testers and sorters.
Entering 2026, with the continuous rise of the overall prosperity of the semiconductor industry, Changchuan Technology, which is in the upstream equipment track, has witnessed a concentrated release of performance. According to the performance forecast disclosed by the company, in the first half of 2026, the company is expected to realize attributable net profit of 900 million yuan to 1 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 110.76% to 134.18%, showing a very strong momentum of performance growth.
In terms of single-quarter data, the company's attributable net profit in the first quarter was 352.5 million yuan. Even calculated based on the lower limit of the forecast net profit of 900 million yuan, the company's net profit in the second quarter alone can reach 547.5 million yuan, successfully refreshing its own single-quarter profit record.
While the performance is growing rapidly, the company's share price has also risen strongly, repeatedly hitting record highs within the year. As of the latest close, the total market value of Changchuan Technology reached 185.3 billion yuan, with an annual increase of over 180% and a market value increase of over 122 billion yuan; if calculated from the low point in early August last year, the cumulative increase in the interval even exceeded 550%, with extremely prominent growth elasticity.
The strongest "shovel seller" in the chip sector, accurately positioning in high-quality tracks
The growth path of Changchuan Technology started in 2008.
At that time, the global financial crisis broke out, the semiconductor industry as a whole fell into a downturn, with depressed industry environment and deserted market sentiment. Against the background of overall pressure on the industry, Zhao Yi, who had worked deeply in Silan Microelectronics for ten years and grew from a grassroots position to production director, chose to start his own business and founded Changchuan Technology in Hangzhou.
In the initial stage of the establishment of the enterprise, track selection became the top priority. At that time, front-end wafer manufacturing equipment such as lithography machines and etching machines were popular tracks in the industry, with countless enterprises clustering to deploy. However, Zhao Yi made a differentiated layout decision, targeting the high-end packaging and testing equipment track which was almost blank in China at that time.
From the perspective of industrial chain structure, testing equipment accounted for only 6.7% of the total value of the entire semiconductor industrial chain at that time, and the track volume was not large, but its industrial attribute was extremely critical. Testing equipment is equivalent to the "quality gatekeeper" before mass production of chips. The results of hundreds of processes in wafer design, manufacturing and packaging all need to be tested through the testing link. Once there is a mistake in the testing link, the chip product will fail directly. It is the core link to ensure the yield of chips and has extremely high industrial rigid demand value.
Looking back now, this track layout is very forward-looking. In 2009, only one year after its establishment, Changchuan Technology launched its first analog tester CTA8200. The launch of this product successfully broke the long-term monopoly of overseas manufacturers in the domestic semiconductor testing equipment market. With excellent cost performance, it opened up the space for domestic substitution in the market dominated by foreign capital.
For many years thereafter, Changchuan Technology has steadily focused on its main business, continuously polished the core product lines of testers and sorters, and continuously accumulated technology and customer resources. After years of deep cultivation, the company's product matrix has been continuously improved, covering multiple categories such as testers, sorters, automated equipment and AOI optical inspection equipment. It has successfully entered the supply chains of mainstream leading integrated circuit enterprises in China and secured its position as the leader of domestic testing equipment.
On April 17, 2017, Changchuan Technology was successfully listed on the ChiNext Board of Shenzhen Stock Exchange, ushering in a key turning point in its development. Relying on the empowerment of the capital market, the company officially established the two-wheel drive strategy of endogenous growth and extensional mergers and acquisitions, and started the road of rapid expansion.
In terms of endogenous R&D, the company continues to increase R&D investment and adheres to independent technology iteration. In 2018, the company launched the D9000 SoC tester, filling the technical gap of domestic digital testers in the high-end SoC field. After that, the company continued to iterate and upgrade, and successively launched a number of products such as high-end digital testing equipment, three-temperature probe stations and three-temperature sorters, continuously expanding the product boundary. At present, the core performance indicators of the company's testers and sorters have reached the leading level in China, close to the international advanced level, and at the same time have obvious price advantages, with prominent cost-effectiveness competitiveness.
In terms of extensional mergers and acquisitions, two key acquisitions have completed the company's entire industrial chain layout.
In 2019, Changchuan Technology completed the acquisition of Singapore-based STI. STI is a world-renowned integrated circuit testing equipment enterprise with profound technical accumulation in the field of 2D/3D high-precision AOI optical inspection. AOI equipment is equivalent to the "high-definition quality inspection system" for chip testing, which relies on nanoscale imaging and intelligent defect identification technology to accurately capture tiny chip defects, and is a rigid demand equipment for semiconductor manufacturing. Through this acquisition, Changchuan Technology successfully obtained the core technology of high-end AOI, and at the same time entered the supply chains of global first-tier manufacturers such as Texas Instruments, Micron, Samsung and STMicroelectronics, greatly expanding its overseas customer resources.
In 2023, the company made another move, acquiring Malaysia-based Exis by issuing shares to purchase assets. Exis focuses on the R&D and production of turret sorters, with strong product customization capabilities, significant cost performance advantages and a stable group of high-quality customers. After the completion of this acquisition, Changchuan Technology has achieved full coverage of gravity, translation and turret sorters, completely completed the full category product layout of sorters, and greatly improved the overall product competitiveness.
Standing on the AI super outlet, breaking out with the support of dual dividends
In 2026, Changchuan Technology ushered in a dual outbreak of performance and valuation, and continued to be highly favored by the capital market.
High performance growth is the core support, and the deep driving force is that the company accurately stands on the dual outlets of AI industry expansion and domestic substitution.
At present, the global semiconductor industry is ushering in an epic expansion cycle driven by AI. The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics Organization (WSTS) predicts that the global semiconductor industry revenue will increase by 26.3% year on year in 2026, and the scale is expected to reach 975 billion US dollars. In this super cycle, the entire semiconductor equipment industry has benefited, and the prosperity of the testing equipment track is particularly prominent.
According to SEMI data, the global semiconductor equipment sales reached 135.06 billion US dollars in 2025, with a year-on-year increase of 15%, of which the sales in the Chinese market was 49.31 billion US dollars, ranking first in the world. In detail, the global semiconductor testing equipment sales in 2025 increased by 48.1% year on year, exceeding 11.2 billion US dollars. The growth rate significantly outperformed the overall level of the equipment industry, and the AI industry dividend is continuously transmitted to the testing equipment link.
The continuous high prosperity of the testing equipment track stems from the technical iteration and upgrading of AI chips.
At present, AI and HPC chips are continuously upgrading to advanced process and Chiplet advanced packaging, and the chip structure is becoming more and more complex, which directly leads to a significant increase in the testing process and testing duration. At the same time, the number of transistors in high-end chips has increased sharply and the chip size has expanded, which further lengthens the testing cycle of a single chip. In addition, HBM chips adopt multi-layer stacking and TSV special structure, adding a number of exclusive testing processes, and the testing complexity has multiplied.
Changes in the industry have brought new industrial logic: even if the terminal shipment of chips remains stable, the market demand for testing equipment will continue to expand with the increase of testing intensity and testing processes, and the incremental space of the industry is fully opened.
In addition to the AI industry dividend, the acceleration of domestic substitution is the second core logic for the company's growth.
For a long time, the global semiconductor tester market has shown a highly monopolistic pattern. Two overseas giants, Advantest and Teradyne, occupy more than 90% of the market share, and Advantest alone has a market share of up to 65%. There is a very broad space for independent and controllable substitution in China. Calculated based on the 2025 market scale, the domestic substitution space for testers alone exceeds 10 billion yuan.
With the changes of the global industrial environment, the process of independent control and domestic substitution of the semiconductor industrial chain continues to accelerate, from the previous single-point technological breakthrough to a new stage of large-scale and systematic substitution. Changchuan Technology, which has been deeply engaged in the testing equipment track for many years, has become the core beneficiary of this wave of domestic substitution with mature products, stable customers and continuously iterating technologies.
Under the opportunities, the challenges of industry competition cannot be ignored.
From a global perspective, the duopoly monopoly pattern of the industry has not changed fundamentally. Overseas giants have significant advantages in core hardware indicators such as high-end test channels, test rates and timing accuracy, and also have soft barriers such as test vector libraries and algorithm ecology accumulated over decades, which are difficult to be completely surpassed in the short term. At present, although the company has achieved comprehensive breakthroughs in the field of mid-to-low end digital testing equipment, there is still a certain gap with the international advanced level in the field of high-end SoC testing equipment.
From a domestic perspective, more and more entrants are pouring into the track, and industry competition is becoming increasingly fierce. As the leader of domestic analog testing equipment, Huafeng Test & Control has achieved key breakthroughs in its self-developed digital tester in 2026; at the same time, more than ten local enterprises such as Jingzhida and Yuexin Technology continue to deploy in the track, and the involution of the industry has intensified, and the subsequent market competition pressure will continue to rise.
Conclusion
From its initial establishment in 2008 to growing into a domestic semiconductor equipment leader with a market value of over 180 billion yuan, Changchuan Technology has embarked on a counterattack path for local hard technology enterprises over the past 18 years.
Accurate track layout, long-term persistent R&D investment, strategic upgrading empowered by mergers and acquisitions, superimposed with the two era dividends of AI industry explosion and domestic substitution, have enabled this enterprise to achieve the identity transition from an industry "chaser" to a track "leader".
At this stage, the high prosperity of the semiconductor testing equipment track continues, but the reality of global technology gap and intensified domestic industry competition still exists. For Changchuan Technology, achieving rapid growth by relying on the era outlet is only the starting point. Continuously focusing on technology, making up for high-end shortcomings and consolidating industry advantages are the core keys to the long-term and steady development of the enterprise.
This article is from "Kan Kan Finance", and is authorized to be released by 36Kr.