The integrated circuit industry develops rapidly and the application scale of precious metals continues to expand.

Because precious metals have good chemical stability, high electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and unique electrical, magnetic, optical and other properties, bonding wires, metal evaporation materials, sputtering targets, etc. made of precious metals are widely used. Materials such as surfactants are widely used in the field of integrated circuits.

Among them, gold, silver, platinum, ruthenium and other metal and alloy targets are widely used in the manufacturing and packaging of silicon semiconductor discrete devices and integrated circuit wafers.

Gold salt is mainly used in printed circuit boards, connectors, lead frames, semiconductor packaging and other fields in the integrated circuit industry. Silver salt is the main raw material used in silver plating.

As an important material for the preparation of microelectronic components, the demand for precious metal slurry is increasing. At the same time, it also places higher requirements on the performance of precious metal powders. Common precious metal materials include Ag powder, Ag-Pd powder, and Pd Powder, Au powder, Pt powder, Ru powder.

Bonding wire is the core material for semiconductor devices and integrated circuit packaging. Common products include bonding silver wire, bonding gold wire, bonding alloy wire, bonding gold wire, and bonding silver alloy wire.

In the integrated circuit industry, precious metal chemicals are mainly used in fields or processes such as chemical nickel gold, chemical nickel-palladium gold, activators, and chemical immersion silver. Among them, nickel-palladium gold has unique applications in the surface treatment of printed circuit boards and semiconductor packaging; palladium surfactants are widely used in the surface treatment of printed circuit boards.

At present, integrated circuits have risen to a national strategic level, and the country has issued a series of policies to encourage the development of the industry. Driven by national policies, China’s integrated circuit industry has developed rapidly and the scale of the industry has continued to expand, providing favorable conditions for the development of precious metals. According to the “2023-2027 In-depth Market Research and Investment Strategy Suggestions Report on the Precious Metal Industry in the Integrated Circuit Field released by the Industrial Research Center, In 2022, the usage of precious metals in China’s integrated circuit industry will be around 600 tons.

The advancement of 5G commercialization will further promote the rapid development of consumer electronics, intelligent automobiles, and intelligent home appliances such as communication equipment, mobile phones, and wearable devices, driving the integrated circuit industry into a new growth cycle. As important materials in the integrated circuit industry, the demand for precious metals such as gold, silver, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, and platinum will continue to grow.

Industry analysts said that domestic technology in the field of precious metals for integrated circuits is still dominated by mid- to low-end, and high-end core technologies are still in the in the hands of multinational corporations. For example, in the field of electronic chemicals, international multinational companies such as Atotech, Rohm and Haas, MacDermid Enox, and Taiwan Chaote have strong technical capabilities and have a monopoly position in the domestic market.