Photo: Science and Technology Daily

A Chinese chemical producer has started trial production of ultra-high-purity hydrogen chloride, a specialty gas used in semiconductor manufacturing, in a move that adds to the country's domestic production capacity for materials needed by the electronics industry, the Science and Technology Daily reported Thursday. 

The facility, operated by Haohua Yuhang, a subsidiary of state-owned Sinochem Holdings, successfully produced qualified products with a purity exceeding 99.9999 percent in its first attempt, the report said. The project has now entered the trial production stage.

Testing showed that the total impurity content of the product was no more than 0.2 parts per million (ppm), according to the company.

While hydrogen chloride is a familiar industrial chemical, producing it at electronic grade is a much more demanding task. Materials used in semiconductor manufacturing must meet extremely high purity standards, as even tiny amounts of unwanted substances can affect the quality of the final product.

Electronic-grade hydrogen chloride is used in several key steps in making semiconductor materials. According to Sinochem, these include polishing silicon wafers, treating the surfaces of materials used to grow semiconductor layers, and etching processes.

Silicon wafers, thin discs made from highly purified silicon, serve as the basic platforms on which many chips are manufactured. During production, their surfaces need to be carefully treated and cleaned to ensure that subsequent processes can be carried out accurately.

The purity level reported by Sinochem means that the amount of impurities in the product is extremely small.

Achieving such standards requires specialized production and purification processes. Sinochem said the project team focused on the distillation and purification of hydrogen chloride, making multiple technical adjustments before finalizing the production process.

The successful startup is an important step for the project, but the facility is still in the trial production stage.

The development comes as China continues to expand its domestic production of materials used in the semiconductor industry. 

Although the country already has companies making high-purity hydrogen chloride, the entry of another chemical producer adds to the number of domestic projects in this specialized field.

Zhejiang-based specialty gas producer GrandiT Technology has listed high-purity hydrogen chloride among its products for semiconductor manufacturing. 

Semiconductor manufacturing depends on a wide range of inputs, from silicon wafers and specialty gases to chemicals used to clean and process materials. 

An Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report in 2025 on the semiconductor value chain also identifies hydrogen chloride as one of the specialty gases used in semiconductor fabrication, highlighting the role of chemical materials in the global chipmaking industry.