Canatu's first reactor generates revenue – customer's mass production approaching

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 10/24/2025 at 7:00 am EEST.

Canatu announced on Thursday that it had granted a commercial production license for the first CNT100 SEMI reactor to Korean semiconductor company FINE SEMITECH CORPORATION (“FST”). The license authorizes FST as the licensee to mass-produce CNT pellicle membranes using the CNT100 SEMI reactor, which will be operated by FST. With this announcement, Canatu's first reactor customer has now also officially been revealed, though the matter was already known earlier based on various news sources.

One-time license fee is the starting point for the first customer's mass production

The value of the one-time license fee for commercial production of CNT pellicle membranes is classified within the lower half of the “Medium” (1.0-5.0 MEUR) category under Canatu’s disclosure policy.  The related revenue will be recognized in Q4’25 and will partly support our revenue estimate for 2025 (14.9 MEUR).

More important than the one-time payment is the fact that the granted license practically kicks off the customer's transition to mass production. Once this begins, Canatu will start generating a continuous revenue stream from the consumables needed for the reactor. Additionally, Canatu will receive royalties from each pellicle manufactured and sold to the end customer, which we estimate could be quite significant. According to various sources, a single EUV pellicle can cost tens of thousands of euros, so in light of this, the royalties Canatu receives could also amount to several thousand euros. However, visibility of these revenue streams is lacking at this point, as their commencement also depends on the plans of FST and its end customer. Currently, only a very small portion of the semiconductor sector revenue we forecast for Canatu in 2026 (26.2 MEUR, +131%) comes from these recurring revenue streams, and we have assumed that new reactor orders (2) will be the key growth driver. Naturally, the visibility of achieving any of this is still very low at this point.  

One of FST's key end customers appears to be Samsung

FST is a company listed on the Korean stock exchange with revenue of around 169 MEUR over the last 12 months (as of 6/2025). Its revenue has grown by around 41% in a year. The EBITDA margin was 11% of revenue in the corresponding period. Based on this news, one of FST's main customers for EUV pellicles could be Samsung, assuming the discussions mentioned in the article have progressed. According to the article, Samsung plans to begin producing 2-nanometer chips as early as the first half of 2026, for which these EUV pellicles are necessary. The license for mass production that FST has now acquired would fit well with this timeline.