China’s export controls on gallium likely to hit US defense industry: experts

[antonius123]

I totally agree. Europe offshored much of it too.

It's a dirty business. Land gets permanently destroyed, rivers get polluted with horrible chemicals, toxic smoke residues from smoke stacks land in agricultural fields. People get cancer, etc.

..and for what? So somebody in Bulgaria can get a cheap phone..that they end up throwing away after 5 years in the local landfill. That was worth the tradeoff??? People really need to step back and think this out. I really don't have much sympathy for some short-life consumer product that required this level of destruction. That ore is gone and and a big hole is left in the ground for the next 1000 generations of citizens to stare and ponder "why?".

If China wants to be #1 at doing this..fine with me...go ahead full speed...dig baby dig..i'll buy that disposable phone!!

If the US needs a small mine to maintain some defense tech then sure...but let's not waste it on millions of consumer products. Maybe just buying a 20 year stockpile would be cheaper.



Good...leave the mountains alone. Sheesh!

The reluctant of dirty business is not the reason why world will need a decade to replace China's supply on gallium and germanium.

Technology is major reason. China master majority patent of REM production technology.

Another bad news is: it will be very expensive and may not economically feasible. The mining and processing of gallium and germanium is energy-intensive. Gallium and germanium are both byproducts of the mining and processing of other materials, such as bauxite and zinc ore. The mining and processing of these materials is energy-intensive, which drives up the cost of producing gallium and germanium.

Another bad news is: there is a lack of expertise in producing gallium and germanium outside of China. The production of gallium and germanium requires specialized knowledge and equipment. There is a limited pool of expertise in these areas outside of China, which drives up the cost of production.

Next bad news is: world bauxite supply is controlled by China.

 

[Song Hong]

GAN is key components for phase array radar.

Raytheon, Lockheed and all these defence contractors in deep sht. A

GAN has almost no alternatives, unless you are going to increase your radar TR module 5x.

 

[CIA Mole]

GAN is key components for phase array radar.

Raytheon, Lockheed and all these defence contractors in deep sht. A

GAN has almost no alternatives, unless you are going to increase your radar TR module 5x.

lol you don't think US companies can skirt sanctions like how china does?

 

[MajesticPug]

China dominates with 80% production of primary low-purity gallium because of low prices.
Gallium is a bi product when refining bauxite to aluminium, which happens outside China too. Gallium used to be produced by various processing plants, but they shut down production due to low gallium prices. If demand is going to raise gallium prices, processing plants outside China will restart production of this primary low-purity gallium that China is exporting.

Then US should have no fear. Bravo! Worst comes to worse, the new batch of F-35's will detect 50% less range than the existing ones. No big deal.

 

[DF41]

lol you don't think US companies can skirt sanctions like how china does?

 

[pikkuboss]

If price increases, Many countries will jump in to produce Gallium. Gallium isn't extracted from Alluminium and Zinc ores because of the costs involved.

 

[Song Hong]

lol you don't think US companies can skirt sanctions like how china does?

You will see massive black market. USA tech is world biggest consumer of GAN. GAN is going to sky rocket.

US can still use black market for her critical components for Raytheon and Lockheed. But key IC vendors such as Qorvo, Skyworks, ADI, Wolfspeed will quickly see lead time of 10 years for non critical customers, for example SpaceX.

Gallim IC uses very primitive node, such as 180 nm (not 3nm of TSMC).

Without big customres, US will see Gallium IC markers going to sht. Meanwhile China will acquire all the Gallium IC customers.

US supplier will loss technologies without a consumer market.

This is not unlike US lost technologies to build warship.

If price increases, Many countries will jump in to produce Gallium. Gallium isn't extracted from Alluminium and Zinc ores because of the costs involved.

USA cannot even build roads or even ships these days. Capitalism production has internal contradiction. When nation under the leadership of decay elites, capitalism is dead meat. Cant produce anything.

 

[MeFishToo]

Then US should have no fear. Bravo! Worst comes to worse, the new batch of F-35's will detect 50% less range than the existing ones. No big deal.

Tell me the amount of gallium needed to build a F-35.

 

[Song Hong]

Tell me the amount of gallium needed to build a F-35.

Let engineer tell you.

The AN/APG-81 TR modules of F35 radar is ALL gallium. It depends on process size and could be a few gram at one TR module. AN/APG-81 has about 1700 TR module.

The dimension of military grade is big.

I have said, US can still get TR module for F35 in black market. But the scarcity due to China ban will collapse the supplier.

Consumer size can use smaller TR module.


View attachment 937169

 

[pikkuboss]

Let engineer tell you.

The AN/APG-81 TR modules of F35 radar is ALL gallium. It depends on process size and could be a few gram at one TR module. AN/APG-81 has about 1700 TR module.

The dimension of military grade is big.

I have said, US can still get TR module for F35 in black market. But the scarcity due to China ban will collapse the supplier.


View attachment 937171

Consumer size can use smaller TR module.


View attachment 937169

How do we even know if US military doesn't have a huge gallium reserve procured before. US would be mad to not store away huge chunk of strategic rare earth metals.

US has the largest Crude production, they still keep artificial reserve of it. It's hard to believe that US won't keep reserve of something they don't produce.

 

[Song Hong]

How do we even know if US military doesn't have a huge gallium reserve procured before. US would be mad to not store away huge chunk of strategic rare earth metals.

US has the largest Crude production, they still keep artificial reserve of it. It's hard to believe that US won't keep reserve of something they don't produce.

Scarcity will first crush not Lockheed or Raytheon, but their supplier Qorvo, Skyworks, Wolfspeed. F35 can still get supply from past reserve.

Without consumer industries and respective economy of scale, the military grade fab will see price level skyrocket.

There will be loss of engineers, loss of skillset if it is under capitalism mode of production.

Meanwhile other non essential customers such as SpaceX will see lead time 10 years.

 

[Vikramaditya-I]

Huawei has a permanent license for arm v8, and RISC V is an option.

So do a lot of companies. You see you are not building something unique, it's not a new architecture, the innovative companies in the field are basically mon-duro or triopolies which basically control almost all technologies for the foreseeable future. I'm gonna end this whole discussion from here on out.

 

[beijingwalker]

Actually China wanted to stop the exports of some key materials for quite a long time, why China didn't do it much earlier was due to concern of the global outcry, now China finally got the chance and pretext to do it.

 

[OIO]

So do a lot of companies. You see you are not building something unique, it's not a new architecture, the innovative companies in the field are basically mon-duro or triopolies which basically control almost all technologies for the foreseeable future. I'm gonna end this whole discussion from here on out.

Stop pretending to be an expert.

 

[MeFishToo]

Let engineer tell you.

The AN/APG-81 TR modules of F35 radar is ALL gallium. It depends on process size and could be a few gram at one TR module. AN/APG-81 has about 1700 TR module.

The dimension of military grade is big.

I have said, US can still get TR module for F35 in black market. But the scarcity due to China ban will collapse the supplier.


View attachment 937171

Consumer size can use smaller TR module.


View attachment 937169

In so many words you have no idea how much gallium is used in a F-35, and you have no idea what the production capacity of primary and secondary low-purity gallium is outside China. Germany restarted gallium production in 2021, and others will follow if prices go up.
FYI the price of refined high-purity gallium is $500 for 1.000 grams.