China Breaks Barrier in “Golden Semiconductor” Production for Next-Gen Chips

For decades, silicon has been the undisputed king of computing, powering everything from smartphones to supercomputers. But as engineers push silicon chips closer to their fundamental physical limits, a global race intensifies to find successors. Now, a breakthrough from Chinese scientists offers a significant leap forward, unlocking the mass production potential of indium selenide – a material hailed as a “golden semiconductor” for its superior properties.

Published in the prestigious journal Science on May 10, 2024, research led by teams from Peking University and Renmin University of China has devised a novel method to overcome the critical bottleneck hindering indium selenide’s widespread use. This semiconductor boasts inherent advantages over silicon, including potentially higher performance and lower energy consumption for future electronic devices. However, achieving large-scale production of high-quality material, where indium and selenium atoms maintain a perfect 1:1 ratio, has been a persistent challenge.

The “Golden” Challenge and the Ingenious Solution

The core problem lay in the delicate atomic dance required. “The core challenge lies in the precise maintenance of the ideal 1:1 atomic ratio of indium and selenium during production,” explained Professor Liu Kaihui from Peking University’s School of Physics, as reported in the study’s coverage. Traditional methods struggled to achieve this consistently at scale, resulting in defects that crippled the material’s electronic potential.

The Chinese team’s innovation was elegantly simple yet highly effective. They heated amorphous indium selenide film alongside solid indium within a sealed environment. Crucially, vaporized indium atoms migrated to the film’s edge, forming an indium-rich liquid interface. This interface acted as a self-regulating zone, gradually guiding the formation of high-quality indium selenide crystals with a near-perfect atomic arrangement. “This method ensures the correct atomic ratio… and has overcome the critical bottleneck,” Professor Liu stated.

From Lab Curiosity to Industrial Promise

The results were tangible and significant. The researchers successfully produced uniform indium selenide wafers measuring 5 centimeters (2 inches) in diameter – a substantial step towards industrial-scale manufacturing. More importantly, they demonstrated the practical viability of this material by constructing large-scale arrays of high-performance transistors directly on these wafers.

Researcher Qiu Chenguang, from Peking University’s School of Electronics, highlighted the immediate application potential: “The transistors… can be used directly in integrated chip devices.” This transition from proof-of-concept to functional device integration marks a major milestone, moving indium selenide beyond theoretical promise into the realm of practical next-generation electronics.

Why “Golden Semiconductors” Matter for the Future

The implications of this breakthrough extend far beyond the laboratory. As silicon chips face increasing difficulties in maintaining performance gains without excessive power consumption and heat generation, alternatives like indium selenide become crucial. Its unique structural and electronic properties could enable:

• Faster Computing: Potential for significantly higher electron mobility than silicon.
• Lower Power Consumption: More efficient operation, critical for mobile devices and large data centers.
• Advanced Applications: Potential suitability for novel computing architectures and specialized sensors.

The Global Chip Race Heats Up

This development places China firmly at the forefront of advanced semiconductor materials research. While mass production and commercial integration will take further development and investment, solving the fundamental production challenge for indium selenide opens a vital new pathway. It signals intensifying global competition to define the materials that will power the next wave of technological innovation, from artificial intelligence to quantum computing.

This breakthrough in mass-producing the ‘golden semiconductor’ indium selenide isn’t just a scientific achievement; it’s a potential game-changer for the entire electronics industry. By solving the critical atomic ratio problem, Chinese researchers have paved the way for high-performance, energy-efficient chips that could finally surpass silicon’s limits. The era of the ‘golden semiconductor’ may be dawning faster than anticipated. Explore the latest chip innovations to understand how this will shape your tech future.

Must Know

Q: What exactly is a “golden semiconductor”?
A: The term “golden semiconductor” refers to indium selenide (InSe), a compound semiconductor material. It earned this nickname due to its unique and highly desirable electronic properties, particularly its potential for high electron mobility and low power consumption compared to silicon, making it valuable for future advanced chips.

Q: Why was mass-producing indium selenide so difficult before?
A: The core challenge was maintaining the precise 1:1 atomic ratio of indium (In) to selenium (Se) consistently across large volumes during production. Deviations from this ratio introduced defects that severely degraded the material’s electronic performance, making it unsuitable for reliable chip manufacturing.

Q: What makes this Chinese breakthrough so significant?
A: The researchers developed a novel sealed heating method using solid indium that creates a self-regulating liquid interface. This ensures the correct In:Se ratio during crystal growth, enabling the production of large (5cm diameter), high-quality indium selenide wafers for the first time, overcoming the major bottleneck to industrial use.

Q: What are the potential applications for these golden semiconductors?
A: Indium selenide chips could enable significantly faster computing, more energy-efficient electronics (extending battery life), and potentially power next-generation technologies like advanced AI systems, specialized sensors, and novel computing architectures where silicon struggles.

Q: When could we see devices using indium selenide chips?
A: While this is a major production breakthrough, translating it into commercial consumer devices will take significant further engineering, manufacturing scale-up, and integration efforts. It likely represents a technology for the latter half of this decade or beyond, but the path is now much clearer.