High-Purity Minerals Enter the Semiconductor Feedstock Chain

When analysts write about semiconductor supply chains they describe the fab: the lithography, deposition and etch tools, the cleanroom, the wafer starts and the packaging lines. What they leave out is the feedstock chemistry that sits upstream of all of that — the 99.9999% pure gases, the sputtering targets, the photoresists, the CVD precursors, the high-purity gallium and germanium. Without those inputs, the most expensive fab in the world produces nothing.

Gallium and germanium

China produces the overwhelming majority of primary gallium and germanium metal and compounds. In 2023 it introduced export licences and then export restrictions on both, precisely because they are inputs into infrared optics, semiconductors and advanced substrates rather than end products. India has modest bauxite and coal-based germanium by-product streams but no high-scale refining or 7N–7N5 purity upgrading.

From minerals to chips

High-purity gallium is used to make GaAs and GaN substrates for RF, power and optoelectronic devices. Germanium enters silicon-germanium alloys for advanced logic and image sensors. Electronic-grade sulfuric acid, hydrogen peroxide and isopropanol are consumed in wafer cleaning in kilogram-per-wafer quantities. CMP slurries and photoresists are applied at every critical layer. These are not exotic niche inputs; they are the consumables that a running fab cannot run out of.

The Indian opportunity

India's semiconductor demand is set by the Ministry of Electronics and IT's own projections — USD 450–500 billion electronics output by 2029–30, with semiconductor consumption scaling from an estimated USD 20–25 billion today toward USD 60–80 billion by 2030. The materials that feed that demand are almost entirely imported. A domestic high-purity chemicals and metals base would serve every announced fab and OSAT simultaneously, giving it a market anchor from day one.

What to watch

• Any gallium or germanium refining capacity announcements — even pilot-scale — as a leading indicator of strategic intent.
• Whether DST/MeitY R&D funding for electronic-grade chemicals translates into pilot plants rather than publications.
• Import volumes of electronic-grade acids, solvents, photoresists and high-purity metals from Korea, Japan and Taiwan.
• Whether Indian fabs and OSATs sign long-term offtake agreements for domestic high-purity feedstock before commissioning.
• Technology-transfer deals with Japanese, Korean or European specialty-chemical firms that include know-how rather than only equipment supply.

Semiconductor competitiveness is decided layer by layer, and the materials layer is the one India currently imports almost completely. The question is not whether India can build fabs; it is whether it builds the chemistry the fabs consume.