Japanese Chemical Giant JSR Expands to Taiwan for EUV Photoresist Production Near TSMC

The world’s leading chipmakers are pushing the boundaries of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) at 2nm and below, a critical bottleneck has emerged in the production of advanced chemicals used to pattern those circuits. Photoresists, the light-sensitive materials that transfer circuit designs onto silicon wafers, must be reformulated for each new process node, and the most advanced EUV-grade resists are produced almost exclusively by a handful of Japanese suppliers.

JSR, the Japanese chemical maker that holds roughly a quarter of the global photoresist market, has established a joint venture with Taiwanese partners Wah Lee Industrial and LCY Chemical to build its first photoresist production facility in Taiwan. The plant, located in Yunlin County, is expected to come online as early as 2028 and will co-develop advanced photoresists with TSMC, ending the company’s status as the last of Japan’s three leading EUV-class resist suppliers without a Taiwanese manufacturing base.

The expansion comes as JSR simultaneously ramps up production-scale facilities for metal oxide resist (MOR) in South Korea, a next-generation EUV chemistry that the company acquired through its $514 million purchase of Inpria in 2021. Together, the two plants represent a coordinated push to lock JSR into the development pipelines of the world’s most important chipmakers before Chinese competitors can close the gap at the leading edge.

JSR is no longer a publicly traded company. Japan Investment Corporation (JIC), a government-backed fund, completed a tender offer at ¥4,350 per share in April 2024, securing more than 84% of outstanding stock. JSR delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange on June 25, 2024, and the merger was finalized in December. Under JIC’s ownership, JSR has moved aggressively to concentrate on semiconductor materials.

The company divested non-core assets to Resonac and Tokuyama in early 2025 and exited its biotech business entirely. In May 2024, it acquired Kyoto-based Yamanaka Hutech, adding chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and atomic layer deposition (ALD) precursor expertise. Then, in September last year, JSR settled long-running patent litigation with Lam Research and converted it into a cross-licensing agreement covering dry-resist EUV patterning and etch precursors.

JSR’s decision to establish a joint venture with Taiwanese partners was driven by a direct request from TSMC. New CEO Tetsuro Hori, who took over in April 2025, told CommonWealth Magazine that “speed is critical,” noting that local production would eliminate the need to ship wafers out of Taiwan during co-development cycles.

JSR had been shipping resist samples from facilities in Japan, the U.S., and Belgium, with each development cycle taking weeks for round-trip shipping alone. A week after the joint venture was announced, JSR opened a separate advanced planarization research center in Hukou, Hsinchu County, in partnership with TSMC and Applied Materials.

The location of photoresist production facilities has become increasingly important as chipmakers push EUV lithography toward its physical limits. A photoresist is the light-sensitive material that transfers circuit patterns onto silicon wafers during lithography. At advanced process nodes, resist formulations need to be precisely tuned to work with specific exposure wavelengths, dose profiles, etch chemistries, and integration workflows.

Each new node requires hundreds of iterative test cycles between the resist supplier and the foundry. JSR’s two largest Japanese rivals have had a co-development presence in Taiwan for years. Tokyo Ohka Kogyo (TOK) and Shin-Etsu Chemical, the first- and third-largest photoresist suppliers respectively, both operate production facilities on the island where their engineers work directly alongside TSMC’s process teams.

Shin-Etsu runs a line in Douliu, also in Yunlin County, and is building a new ¥83 billion facility in Isesaki, Gunma Prefecture. TOK has been present in Taiwan for more than a decade and announced a ¥20 billion photoresist plant in South Korea in late 2025 to serve Samsung. This means that every major Japanese materials supplier is now either manufacturing in Taiwan or actively building out capacity to do so.

JSR’s Taiwan plant will produce photoresist for TSMC, but in the longer term, the company will focus on metal oxide resist (MOR). MOR uses tin-oxide-based chemistry rather than the organic polymers and photoacid generators found in CARs, which rely on chemical amplification to compensate for the few high-energy photons produced by the light source at 13.5nm EUV wavelengths.

However, that amplification introduces acid-diffusion blur and worsening line-edge roughness as feature sizes shrink. Tin-oxide MOR absorbs EUV photons roughly five times more efficiently than organic CARs, and uses molecular building blocks roughly five times smaller, while etch resistance is 10 to 100 times higher. At SPIE Advanced Lithography 2025, Inpria reported MOR patterning down to pitch-18 with full etch transfer.

The decision by JSR to focus on MOR production was driven by the company’s desire to capture market share in the rapidly growing demand for advanced EUV materials. The names to watch are Hubei Dinglong, Xuzhou B&C Chemical (backed by Huawei’s Hubble Investment arm), Jiangsu Nata Optoelectronic, and Shanghai Sinyang.

Chinese firms have made progress at the KrF and i-line level, but penetration at ArF and above remains negligible. Domestic Chinese supply of ArF and EUV resist sits below 5%. The names to watch are Hubei Dinglong, Xuzhou B&C Chemical (backed by Huawei’s Hubble Investment arm), Jiangsu Nata Optoelectronic, and Shanghai Sinyang.

According to Toru Kimura, a senior officer at JSR who heads the company’s electronic materials business, “Chinese players are a threat, but it’ll still be some time before they can catch up with us and take market share.” Specific capacity figures, the output mix between MOR and conventional resists, and the exact scope of the Yunlin plant have not been disclosed.

As the chip industry continues to push the boundaries of EUV lithography, JSR’s decision to establish a joint venture with Taiwanese partners has significant implications for the global supply chain. The company’s focus on MOR production and its commitment to co-development with TSMC will help ensure that advanced EUV materials are available in sufficient quantities to meet the demands of leading chipmakers.

In addition, JSR’s investment in research and development is expected to drive innovation in the field of photoresist production. The company has established a separate advanced planarization research center in Hukou, Hsinchu County, in partnership with TSMC and Applied Materials. This collaboration will help advance the state-of-the-art in photoresist production and ensure that JSR remains at the forefront of EUV lithography.

Overall, JSR’s expansion into Taiwan marks a significant shift in the company’s strategy for meeting the demands of leading chipmakers. By establishing a joint venture with Taiwanese partners and focusing on MOR production, JSR is well-positioned to capture market share in the rapidly growing demand for advanced EUV materials.

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