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After the "neon shortage" struck I asked What are the ways in which semiconductor-grade neon is critical for manufacturing? and the answer(s) turned out to be quite informative.

Al Jazeera's July 5, 2023 Microchip trade war: China announces export restrictions suggests there might be a challenges to some industries/companies/countries obtaining these materials in the future.

The reason that lithium and nickel restrictions are so painful is that they are needed in huge quantities because they are bulk components of rechargeable batteries electric power storage and vehicles, with demand expected to soar even higher in the future.

The reason neon was a problem was not abundance (it comes from the atmosphere so it's the same everywhere) it was just that about half of all the refineries making ultra-pure neon happened to be in one country that was (and still is) under attack.

But to my thinking, germanium and gallium are present in only milligram quantities in consumer electronics for example, maybe a small, RF strained silicon or SiGe CMOS chip here or a GaAs power amplifier there.

So is it actually GaN (white LED lighting, USB chargers) that represents the primary industrial demand for gallium in electronics, or perhaps is gallium used in some alloy for soldering, bonding or chip packaging?

Germanium is used to dope the cores of optical single mode silica optical fibers for long-haul communications, but those are pretty tiny quantities.

Question: What are the primary industrial uses of gallium and germanium in electronics?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ GaN FETs are gaining in popularity in high frequency switching power supplies and GHz transistors. \$\endgroup\$
    – qrk
    Commented Jul 6, 2023 at 1:10
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    \$\begingroup\$ Germanium is used in small amounts in some solders. \$\endgroup\$
    – Hearth
    Commented Jul 6, 2023 at 1:23

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Not directly electronics but germanium is used in lenses for IR sensors, such as in military IR-sensing weapons.

Ge is also used in some specialized resistance temperature sensors operating at or below 4K and in detectors for ionizing radiation.

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    \$\begingroup\$ There's still some SiGe electronics, especially high-speed clocking products, but not like in the old days where germanium was king :) \$\endgroup\$
    – John D
    Commented Jul 6, 2023 at 5:01
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    \$\begingroup\$ @JohnD "Oliver Germanium" of Germanium Power Devices? \$\endgroup\$
    – Spehro 'speff' Pefhany
    Commented Jul 6, 2023 at 6:17
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    \$\begingroup\$ @SpehroPefhany Right, LOL, I still remember the ads. \$\endgroup\$
    – John D
    Commented Jul 6, 2023 at 16:18
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    \$\begingroup\$ @SpehroPefhany Electronics March 16, 1978 worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Electronics/70s/78/… page 53 of PDF (though there's so much fun stuff to see scrolling all the way there) (also archived) found in this thread Ah... "Circle 51 on reader service card" \$\endgroup\$
    – uhoh
    Commented Jul 7, 2023 at 1:42
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    \$\begingroup\$ @JohnD ditto... \$\endgroup\$
    – uhoh
    Commented Jul 7, 2023 at 1:44
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Surprisingly, mostly semiconductors:

Mineral Commodity Summaries, Gallium (2023) | US Geological Survey

There are minor uses in alloys (low-melting and liquid alloys, as a modifier in others; the most esoteric probably being to stabilize δ-phase plutonium metal in weapons(!)), and in chemical synthesis.

There isn't really anything to offer in an answer that hasn't already been covered by Wikipedia:

Gallium - Applications | Wikipedia

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks, but if you just want to point to Wikipedia, that can be done in a comment, rather than a link-only answer. I didn't ask "Where can I find a list of all the..." or "name some minor and esoteric uses", I asked something pretty specific; "What are the primary industrial uses of gallium and germanium in electronics?" and so far I'm not seeing an answer here to that question as-asked yet. \$\endgroup\$
    – uhoh
    Commented Jul 6, 2023 at 5:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ Perhaps you could be more specific then. If you mean what kinds of devices are constructed with those wafers, you may quickly end with an unanswerable question (i.e. you'd need sales numbers from multiple manufacturers to know what families or types of devices are produced, as well as how much material is in each). \$\endgroup\$
    – Tim Williams
    Commented Jul 6, 2023 at 5:47
  • \$\begingroup\$ There's likely some primary uses and out of the very large and diverse user base here in ESE likely somebody who knows what they are. Not every SE question has to be necessarily easy for most people to answer off the top of their heads. The question is only 7 hours old; let's give it a few days before we deem it "unanswerable". \$\endgroup\$
    – uhoh
    Commented Jul 6, 2023 at 7:09

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