NAURA pays 405 million yuan for a loss-making chip-stacking toolmaker; Huawei and CXMT build on the step
NAURA Technology is paying 405 million yuan for a loss-making hybrid-bonding toolmaker, buying into the packaging step Huawei's LogicFolding chips and CXMT's 4F² DRAM now both rely on. The segment Besi still dominates is being contested by funded Chinese builders and, on a patent study out this week, possibly by ASML.
Richard Tang · 4 min read
NAURA Technology−2.68% — NAURA Technology, down 2.68 percent today, China's largest chip-equipment maker, agreed on October 15, 2026, to pay 405 million yuan in cash for Nuohe Jianwei, a Beijing maker of hybrid-bonding equipment 1. China's tool sector is buying into the packaging step its chip designers now build around 2, and buying it before it earns 1.
The seller is the Beijing Integrated Circuit Equipment Industry Investment and Acquisition Phase II Fund, a state fund that held the target 1. Nuohe Jianwei ran at an operating and net loss in 2025 and in the first half of 2026, because hybrid-bonding tools spend years in iteration and customer qualification before revenue arrives 1.
Hybrid bonding is the step Huawei and CXMT build around
Hybrid bonding joins stacked dies with direct copper connections where solder bumps used to sit 3. It is the key process behind 3D integration in system chips, stacked memory and chiplets 1.
Huawei's Kirin 9050 Pro, the first mass-produced chip built on LogicFolding, an architecture that stacks active silicon layers, carries more than 50 million hybrid bonds 45. ChangXin Memory (CXMT)+3.28% — ChangXin Memory (CXMT), up 3.28 percent today, the Chinese DRAM maker now fourth in world DRAM revenue, bonds the same way in the 4F² memory cell it unveiled on October 10 6.
The 4F² name means the cell occupies four times the square of the smallest feature a fab can print 6. Stacking is how both companies keep advancing without the extreme-ultraviolet lithography US rules deny them 46.
Export rules route the tool bill to builders at home
US export controls keep American toolmakers out of CXMT's advanced lines, and Beijing requires new fab capacity to draw at least half its equipment from domestic makers 6. Huawei is assembling a home-grown tool chain with NAURA and AMEC, a Chinese etch-tool maker, behind its packaging roadmap 5.
NAURA says Nuohe Jianwei's shipped tools reach nanoscale alignment and have won repeat orders, with leading customers still in validation or order talks 1. The scarce thing is a machine a running fab will buy at volume: China still leans on imported bonding equipment, according to a Huaan Securities report 4, and memory makers are too busy selling everything on the qualified old process to switch tools 3.
The prize is a tool a running fab buys at volume
Turning a designed cell into tools a fab runs at volume is where the money in this story sits 6. That is what NAURA is paying 405 million yuan to do 1.
Besi's price counts a franchise now contested from two sides
BE Semiconductor−4.80% — BE Semiconductor, down 4.80 percent today Industries, the Dutch bonding-tool maker known as Besi, leads this segment, and Bernstein expects it to make three of every four hybrid bonders shipped in 2028 37.
UBS puts the hybrid-bonding revenue implied by Besi's share price at about €936 million for 2030 3. The bank's own forecast is €424 million 3. The gap between those two numbers is the contestable ground in the shares.
Twenty-seven ASML filings point at a rival hybrid bonder
On October 16 the shares fell 3%, after SemiAnalysis, a research firm, published an analysis of 27 ASML patent filings pointing to a hybrid bonder from the lithography giant 7. ASML−0.28% — ASML, down 0.28 percent today has not confirmed it is developing one 7.
SemiAnalysis says it believes ASML could gain an edge in alignment accuracy and particle control, the two factors it says set bonding yield, because ASML solves the same problems in lithography 4. That is a research firm's stated belief, not a shipped product 47.
UBS's target sits below Besi's price; BofA's sits above
- Estimate
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| 52-week high | €328.4 |
| BofA target, 6 Oct (estimate) | €212 |
| Price, 15 Oct | €162.18 |
| UBS target, 7 Oct (estimate) | €159 |
What October 22 and October 30 will decide
Besi reports its third-quarter order book on October 22, 2026, and the number to beat is the second quarter's €292.9 million of orders 3. The tell is repeat production orders from memory makers rather than evaluation systems 3.
NAURA follows with third-quarter results on October 30, 2026 8. Its first half showed the cost of this stage: revenue grew about 25% while profit grew 5%, research spending taking the difference 68.
October 22 tests the volume, October 30 the margin
October 22 will show whether memory makers are buying bonding tools at volume yet, and what that does to the €936 million of 2030 bonding revenue Besi's price assumes 3. October 30 will show whether NAURA's tool sales arrive as margin or as research spend 8.
Until both readings land, the risk sits with holders of Besi's assumed growth and holders of NAURA's margin.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
