GoKawiilAs chipmakers push EUV lithography toward its physical limits at 2nm and below, the advanced chemicals used to pattern those circuits have become a critical bottleneck. 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. With AI chip demand driving record orders at leading foundries, those suppliers are now racing to build production capacity closer to their biggest customers.
JSR, the Japanese chemical maker that holds roughly a quarter of the global photoresist market, established a joint venture with Taiwanese partners Wah Lee Industrial and LCY Chemical in early April 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 the world's first production-scale facility for metal oxide resist (MOR) in South Korea, a next-gen 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.
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JSR under new ownership
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. The deal valued the company at roughly ¥909 billion ($6.4 billion).
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 was driven by a direct request from TSMC, according to CommonWealth Magazine. New CEO Tetsuro Hori, who took over in April 2025, told the publication 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.
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