THE REAL WINNER IS THE TWO TYPES OF UPSTREAM EQUITY
The real winner of the replacement was not in the storage plant, but in the upstream selling of equipment and consumables. 。
Original by Ada, Deep tide TechFlow
According to TrendForce, an industry research institute, Hercules has completed 375 floor NAND design certification, a volume production plan was launched by the end of 2026 and the company will convert its existing capacity to production. The verification of the 375th floor NAND was completed, pushing to the stage an industrial turning point that had been going on for many years, with almost a quarter of a century of tungsten in the chip being replaced by molybdenum. The real winner of the replacement was not in the storage plant, but in the upstream selling of equipment and consumables。
The tungsten has been holding up for nearly 25 years, and it's being scaled out of its physical boundaries
IT'S WORTH MENTIONING THAT THE FIRST IN THE METAL LINE TO INTRODUCE MOLYBDENUM WAS TRISTAR, NOT HERCULES. SAMSUNG WAS ALREADY USING MOLYBDENUM AT THE NINTH GENERATION OF NAND ON ITS 286TH LAYER, WHICH WAS PRODUCED IN APRIL 2024, AND IS NOW EXPANDING ITS USE TO MORE PROCESS STEPS. HERCULES IS THE FIRST MOLYBDENUM TO BE USED ON HIS OWN PRODUCT LINE AND IS A CHASER IN INDUSTRY COORDINATES RATHER THAN A PIONEER。
The 375 layer product itself has a history. According to TheElec, the 400 tiers within Hercules were originally graded, eventually down to 375 because of the manufacturing complexity of the superstition. Even so, it is still a critical leap on the Hercules NAND road map, and the more distant 480 and 604 layers of products are thought to be more completely dependent on molybdenum。
THE REPLACEMENT OF MOLYBDENUM WITH TUNGSTEN, THOUGH NOT UNIQUE TO STORAGE, HAS LED TO AN INDUSTRY-LEVEL TURNING POINT. TUNGSTEN IS REPORTED TO HAVE BEEN USED FOR NEARLY 25 YEARS AS AN INTERCONNECTED METAL IN THE NAND, DRAM AND LOGICAL/SUPREME PROCESSES, BUT THE SCALING REQUIREMENT IS NOW CROSSING THE TUNGSTEN BOUNDARY, WITH MOLYBDENUM BECOMING THE PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE CANDIDATE。
MOLYBDENUM HAS MORE THAN LOW RESISTANCE. UNLIKE TUNGSTEN AND COPPER, MOLYBDENUM CAN PREVENT PROLIFERATION WITHOUT A BARRIER LAYER, SAVE PROCESS AND INCREASE THE GOOD RATE; ITS HIGH MELTING POINT AND ANTIOXIDATION PROPERTIES SUPPORT DIRECT DEPOSITION, AND ARE MORE SUITABLE FOR THE 3D NAND STRUCTURE AND THE LOGICAL GAA STRUCTURE, SUCH AS THE FULL RING FENCE. IN OTHER WORDS, THE MORE THE LAYERS GO UP, THE MORE THE NODES GO DOWN, THE MORE THE TUNGSTEN, THE GREATER THE PENETRATION SPACE FOR THE MOLYBDENUM. THIS IS THE VERY FOUNDATION OF THE "SOLDER" LOGIC, WHICH, ONCE IT HAS BEEN LAID, BENEFITS FROM THE PROVISION OF TOOLS AND MATERIALS。
Lam Research: The only sold shovel that produced ALD molybdenum tools People
The most direct narrative in this line is Lam Research. Its Altus Halo, which was introduced in February 2025, is known as the industry's primary acoustic sedimentation (ALD) tool that uses molybdenum for mass production, and in most cases electrical resistance has improved by more than 50 per cent than traditional tungsten metalization. On the other hand, Lam disclosed that the early introduction of the 3D NAND plants already operating in Korea and Singapore, as well as the advanced logic plants, was paralleled by Samsung and Hercules in Korea, and Singapore by American light。
Business elasticity lies in the complexity of the process. According to the Zacks study, Lam is currently the only supplier with an ALD molybdenum input, a service provider and a NAND customer; molybdenum deposition, though slower and more complex, can triple the serviceable market for single-crystal metal deposits at these advanced nodes. Processes are difficult and incremental for the equipment manufacturer。
Entegris, selling waste materials, beauty is the only pure repository of the stock
Application material (AMAT) takes another path. In February of this year, it launched the Spectral ALD system, replacing tungsten in today ' s transistor contact with molybdenum and reducing electrical resistance at this critical link between the transistor and the copper wire network, which has been adopted by several leading logical replacement plants. What needs to be distinguished is that Lam's molybdenum story is one of NAND/DRAM fonts, and AMAT's molybdenum story is one of 2 nm GAA logical contact, which is different from downstream and cannot benefit from the same logic。
The end of the material is represented by Entegris (ENTG). The company supplies molybdenum solid pre-discharge MoO2Cl2, customised for DRAM and 3D NAND, with ProE-Vap delivery systems. The logic lies in the chain effect of material switching. According to Entegris, from copper and tungsten to molybdenum. This change will affect the processes of front-exposure selection, projectile design, grinding fluid formulation, corrosive materials and filtering, which are more dispersed but run through multiple processes。
As for the storage plant itself, Samsung and Hercules were not on the main board of the United States stock, and U.S.U. was the only pure storage mark in the United States stock and seized positions on the molybdenum. Lam quotes Mark Kiehlbouch, Vice-President of NAND Development, that molybdenum metallicization has allowed Mizuki to take the lead in achieving industry-led I/O bandwidth and storage capacity on the latest generation of NAND products. However, Migwang is a "mixer" rather than a "mixer" whose share price is driven mainly by storage cycles and HBMs, which are simply performance-specific。
The molybdenum miners? The semiconductor demand is nothing
In theory, molybdenum miners are also the marginal beneficiaries of this narrative, and the United States shares can use molybdenum as a by-product of copper. But semiconductor molybdenum is too small. According to TheElec and industry estimates, Samsung purchased about 4 tons of molybdenum last year, about 10 tons this year, Hercules started about 4 tons, and the whole industry is expected to be only 80 tons by 2030. In contrast to the global molybdenum market, which consumes hundreds of thousands of tons per year, which is dominated by steel alloys, semiconductor demand is only a fraction. Hanging the miner's share price on NAND narrative is an untenable cause and consequence。
AND THIS IS WHERE THE STORY OF TUNGSTEN RETREATS, WITH THE 375 FLOORS AS A STARTING POINT, AND THE REAL RANGE SPANS THE THREE MAIN CATEGORIES OF NAND, DRAM AND MATERIALS. IN THIS CHANGE OF METAL, THE CHAIN OF TOOLS AND CONSUMABLES IS MORE CERTAIN, THE MOLYBDENUM STORAGE PLANT IS A PERFORMANCE RATHER THAN A VALUATION BENEFICIARY, AND THE METAL END IS VIRTUALLY NON-EXISTENT。
Statement: This does not constitute any investment proposal
