China’s ‘Silent Sanction’ on
US Semiconductors Creates a Weapons Generation Gap
Export controls on gallium nitride and
other critical minerals hold back development while Chinese military technology
surges
China’s
Military Parade and GaN Semiconductor Dominance
·
Parade showcase:
China’s Tiananmen Square military parade unveiled advanced weapons powered by gallium
nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology,
highlighting a less visible but highly significant strategic edge.
·
Strategic advantage:
o
GaN
semiconductors enable phased array radars with faster scanning, multiple
beam formation, higher reliability, and longer service life than traditional
gallium arsenide (GaAs)-based systems.
o
China has widely deployed GaN-based
radars across its armed forces, far ahead of the U.S. and Russia, whose
militaries still rely heavily on older radar technologies.
·
Industrial dominance:
o
China controls over 90% of global refined
gallium production and 68% of proven reserves.
o
It has achieved mass production of 8-inch GaN wafers and applies GaN
across industries from 5G networks to EV radar, AI data centers, and drones.
o
Export controls on gallium and germanium act as a silent
counter-sanction against U.S. semiconductor and defense
industries.
·
Military-civilian fusion:
o
GaN
technology exemplifies China’s military-civilian integration strategy,
where innovations spread from defense to commercial
markets, driving mass adoption, cost reduction, and industrial maturity.
o
This supports China’s goals of building a modernized
military by 2027 and world-class armed forces by 2049.
·
Global implications:
o
China’s lead in GaN-based
phased array radar systems positions it as the only country deploying them
at scale.
o
Its control over raw materials and industrial
capacity gives Beijing powerful leverage in both military competition and
global tech markets.
In
addition to the spectacle of Wednesday’s military parade in Tiananmen Square,
with its rows of never-before-seen weapons and equipment, was a less visible
but highly consequential shift.
At
its heart lies China’s growing dominance in gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology, giving it a strategic
advantage that is reshaping the global arms race, according to a report by the
Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Physics.
“Behind
this technological advancement lies a ‘hidden thread’ of semiconductor
development: China’s GaN-based semiconductor
technology has reached maturity,” it said in the report, which was also
released on Wednesday.
Unlike
Washington’s overt restrictions aimed at curbing China’s access to advanced
chips, Beijing’s countermove has effectively become a silent sanction on the US
semiconductor industry – particularly its defence capabilities.
Framed
as measures to ensure national security and fair trade, China’s export controls
on critical raw materials like gallium and germanium also exploit its
near-monopoly on the production of essential materials for next-generation
military electronics.
This
strategic leverage has enabled China to deploy cutting-edge phased array radar
systems across its armed forces at a pace and scale unmatched by the United
States, according to the report.
What
did China’s military parade tell us about its capabilities and global standing?
From
the KJ-500A airborne early warning aircraft to the new Type 100 tank equipped
with multiple GaN-based radar units, these systems
showcase a level of integration and miniaturisation once reserved for elite
platforms.
Meanwhile,
much of the US naval fleet still relies on older radar technologies, with the
latest Arleigh Burke-class destroyers only recently fielding modern active
electronically scanned array (AESA) systems.
The
basic principle of phased array radar can be compared to two waves crossing in
the same direction: where wave peaks align, they reinforce each other and the
resulting combined wave changes in direction and shape.
By
replacing each emission area on the radar with an individual transistor
transmission unit and directly controlling the emission phase of each wave
source in the array, the radar can rapidly steer and scan without physically
moving.
This
approach not only enables extremely fast scanning and the simultaneous
formation of multiple beams but also offers significantly improved reliability
and accuracy over conventional radar.
The
key material for manufacturing each transistor transmitter is GaN, which is regarded as a third-generation semiconductor.
“Compared
to traditional gallium arsenide (GaAs), GaN offers
notable advantages: it supports power densities five to 10 times higher than
GaAs, greatly enhancing radar detection range and resolution,” the report said.
“Radars
made with GaN are more compact and efficient, with
stronger reliability and longer service life in high-temperature environments,
substantially reducing maintenance needs and costs.”
According
to the report, phased array radar has long been associated with “high
performance, high complexity, and high cost”. Despite the technology’s frequent
appearance in the parade, it had not become more affordable and accessible, it
said.
“To
this day, a significant portion of the Russian Aerospace Forces’ Su-35S
fighters still use passive electronically scanned array (PESA) radar, with
avionics performance lagging noticeably behind that of China and the US,” the
report said.
“The
situation in the United States is also challenging: although it pioneered AESA
technology and developed it rapidly, its mainstay destroyer, the Arleigh
Burke-class, continues to widely use the SPY-1 PESA radar even in the latest
Flight IIA variants,” it said.
The
report also noted that it was “only recently that the first Flight III
Burke-class destroyer entered service, finally equipped with the advanced SPY-6
AESA system”.
China
appears to be the only country deploying phased array radar on a large scale.
According to state broadcaster CCTV, the domestically developed radars seen on
Wednesday are interconnected across ranges to form coordinated networks capable
of detecting stealth aircraft, ballistic missiles and other targets.
Integral
to this capability is China’s dominance in the GaN
industry, achieved not by restricting technology flows but by leveraging
advantages across the entire industrial chain, from production to application.
With
its abundant raw materials and position as the world’s largest producer of
alumina, China has a natural advantage in large-scale gallium extraction – a
by-product that often occurs alongside bauxite and lead-zinc ores.
Data
from the US Geological Survey shows that as of 2022, China accounted for about
68 per cent of the 279,300 tonnes of global proven reserves of gallium metal –
the highest share worldwide.
What
are rare earths, and why is China’s dominance facing global pushback
China
also has highly mature technologies for gallium refining and processing,
accounting for more than 90 per cent of global refined gallium production in
2023. In July of that year, the Ministry of Commerce imposed export controls on
gallium and germanium, reaffirming this policy in December 2024.
Commercial
demand has driven GaN’s adoption – in smartphone
chargers and 5G base stations, automotive radar in electric vehicles and DJI’s
agricultural drones, along with rapidly expanding satellite communication
networks – with its properties highly valued across electronics and communications.
GaN chips are more energy efficient than their silicon-based
counterparts, paving the way for an energy revolution in AI data centres, with
estimates that a fully upgraded site could reduce energy consumption by more
than 30 per cent.
China
has already achieved mass production of 8-inch GaN
wafers, announcing the breakthrough in March.
According
to the report, China’s global leadership in GaN-based
phased array technology is “a vivid example of the ‘military-civilian fusion’
strategy” – a central pillar of its ambition to develop a modernised military
by 2027 and world-class armed forces by 2049.
Under
the strategy, military technology is first disseminated to civilian markets,
where enormous demand drives rapid iteration in the industrial chain. This, in
turn, leads to increased production capacity, lower costs, and continuously
improving reliability.