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With the loud sound of golden gongs, the Dragon Picture Light Cover was officially launched!

As a rare independent third-party semiconductor mask manufacturer in China, Longtu Mask has mastered the key technologies for the production and manufacturing of semiconductor masks at process nodes of 130nm and above, and has played an important role in the localization of semiconductor masks in my country.

With the country's strong support for high-tech industries and the trend of global semiconductor industry transfer, domestic semiconductor companies have ushered in a golden period of development.

The listing of Longtu Photomask will not only help enhance my country's competitiveness in the global semiconductor industry chain, but also provide new investment opportunities for investors.

Deeply cultivate the field of semiconductor masks and continuously improve business capabilities

Semiconductor masks are key materials in semiconductor manufacturing. In chip manufacturing, their role is to transfer the circuit patterns they carry to substrate materials such as silicon wafers through exposure, thereby achieving mass production of integrated circuits.

The process capability of the mask is one of the important factors limiting the minimum line width of the chip, and directly determines the process level of chip manufacturing.

Longtu Opto-Mask is a technology-innovative enterprise focusing on key semiconductor materials. Since its establishment, it has focused on serving my country's semiconductor manufacturing industry. Its development has mainly gone through three stages of evolution:

From 2010 to 2018, the product direction was determined to be semiconductor masks, and the products were used in LED, advanced packaging and other fields;

From 2018 to 2022, we will focus on special process semiconductor masks, and our products will be widely used in LDMOS and VDMOS devices, MEMS sensors, RF devices, power management chips and other fields;

From 2022 to 2025, while maintaining our advantages in the semiconductor mask field, our technology level will continue to advance towards high-end processes.

After years of development, Longtu Mask's semiconductor mask process node has gradually increased from 1μm to 130nm. It has become an important force in the research and development and production of semiconductor masks in my country, and has established long-term and stable cooperation with many high-quality customers.

Among them are well-known chip manufacturers, MEMS sensor manufacturers, advanced packaging manufacturers, chip design companies, and many well-known universities and research institutes conducting basic technology research.

From 2021 to 2023, Longtu Photomask achieved revenue of 114 million yuan, 162 million yuan, and 218 million yuan respectively, with an average annual compound growth rate of 38.56% over the three years, and a net profit compound growth rate of more than 40%, and its sustainable operating capabilities continued to improve.

Longtu Optoelectronics predicts that from January to June 2024, the company's operating income will reach 125 million to 130 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.17% to 26.02%; the net profit attributable to the parent is expected to be 48 million to 50 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.41% to 24.39%.

Solid technical foundation and continued increase in R&D investment

The semiconductor mask industry is a capital-intensive and technology-intensive industry that is highly dependent on proprietary technology and accumulated experience and has distinct "Know-How" characteristics.

Longtu's core mask technologies all come from independent research and development. As of December 31, 2023, the company has 16 invention patents, 27 utility model patents, and 36 computer software copyrights.

The company is a "little giant" enterprise recognized by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China. In addition, it has also been recognized as a Guangdong Province Power Semiconductor Chip Mask Engineering Technology Research Center, a Guangdong Province Specialized, Precise and Innovative Small and Medium-sized Enterprise, and a National High-tech Enterprise.

Among them, CAM layout processing, lithography and detection are the three core technology systems of Longtu mask, which have solved the problems of accuracy and defect control in the process of high-precision mask production and achieved a series of technical results.

Take CAM layout processing as an example. This is an important part of mask production and manufacturing. It is the starting point for image transfer from chip design layout to mask pattern. Its essence is the conversion and processing of graphic data. The difficulty of this part lies in the fact that there is graphic distortion in wafer exposure at high process nodes, and optical compensation of mask pattern is required.

Through a large amount of experimental and practical data, Longtu Photomask has established its own unique rule-based graphic compensation (OPC) database, which can perform fast and accurate automated OPC compensation processing on various design layouts, achieving significant improvements in process and precision.

In addition, Longtu Mask is also actively carrying out cutting-edge technology research and development. It currently has electron beam lithography technology and PSM phase-shift mask technology, laying a solid technical foundation for the manufacture of higher-level semiconductor masks.

In terms of industry-university-research cooperation, the company has reached an industry-university-research cooperation agreement with the Semiconductor Institute of the Guangdong Academy of Sciences and the State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices of South China University of Technology, and is actively carrying out joint research and development to achieve resource sharing and comprehensive cooperation.

From 2021 to 2023, Longtu invested RMB 9.318 million, RMB 15.333 million and RMB 20.1759 million in R&D expenses for photomasks, respectively, accounting for 8.20%, 9.49% and 9.24% of its operating income, respectively. The three-year average annual compound growth rate reached 47.15%.

The entry threshold for semiconductor masks is extremely high. Its technology research and development and product iteration require not only continuous capital investment, but also high-end compound talents who understand processes, technology, equipment, and software.

From 2021 to 2023, the talent team of Longtu Mask R&D Center increased from 26 people at the end of 2021 to 42 people at the end of 2023, accounting for 21.99% of the company's total number of employees.

Layout high-end market and seize new opportunities of domestic substitution

The semiconductor industry is the core of the information technology industry and a pillar industry for economic development. As one of the key materials for semiconductor manufacturing, semiconductor masks have high technical barriers. The domestic market has long been dominated by international manufacturers, such as Photronics in the United States, Toppan in Japan, and DNP in Japan. Domestic manufacturers have little market influence.

Against the backdrop of current trade frictions and anti-globalization of the semiconductor industry, accelerating import substitution has risen to the level of national strategy, and the development of the domestic semiconductor mask industry has also ushered in a historic opportunity.

From the perspective of market demand, in recent years, driven by downstream emerging industries such as new energy vehicles, photovoltaic power generation, industrial automation, and the Internet of Things, specialty process semiconductors represented by power devices have developed rapidly, directly promoting the updating and iteration of semiconductor products and the continuous expansion of semiconductor production lines, creating huge development space for semiconductor masks.

In this IPO, the company plans to use the raised funds for high-end semiconductor chip mask manufacturing base projects, high-end semiconductor chip mask R&D center projects, and supplementary working capital projects.

Among them, the high-end semiconductor chip mask manufacturing base project is to implement the development and industrialization of higher-process (130nm-65nm nodes) semiconductor masks through technological upgrades of the company's existing core products, meet higher-end market requirements with innovative, high-performance and high-quality products, and accelerate the realization of domestic substitution of semiconductor masks below the 130nm process node, while enhancing the company's competitiveness and profitability.

The high-end semiconductor chip mask R&D center project aims to improve the company's R&D and innovation capabilities and overall competitiveness, and to develop high-end semiconductor mask technology and processes based on market and customer needs to adapt to the needs of different markets and customers.

Looking ahead, Longtu Photomask will take advantage of its existing advantages and product competitiveness to continuously expand its domestic market share. At the same time, with the help of the capital market, it will strengthen the company's leading position in technology, gradually break through high-end processes, and become a leading company in the domestic semiconductor mask field.