Semiconductors are materials between conductors and insulators. Since it was officially invented on December 23, 1947, it has been widely used in the fields of home appliances, communication, network, aviation, aerospace, national defense and so on, bringing revolutionary influence to the electronic industry. In 2010, the global semiconductor market reached $298.3 billion, driving the trillion-dollar electronic product market.

With the growth of the semiconductor market, semiconductor materials have also made breakthroughs. Wang Zhanguo introduced that germanium and silicon are generally called the first generation semiconductor materials. Gallium arsenide and indium phosphide are called the second generation semiconductor materials, while silicon carbide, gallium nitride and diamond with wide band gap are called the third generation semiconductor materials.

Among the first generation materials, 12-inch monocrystalline silicon has been produced on a large scale, and 18-inch monocrystalline silicon has been successfully developed in the laboratory. The annual silicon consumption in integrated circuits in the world is about 20,000 tons. As for polysilicon, due to the lack of purity of domestic products, silicon wafers used in integrated circuits in China are basically imported. In 2011, China's polysilicon output was 50,000 tons.

In terms of silicon-based microelectronics technology, 8-inch has been widely used in large-scale integrated circuits internationally, and there are about 38 5-12-inch integrated circuit lines in China.

On the process level, the international 12-inch 45-nanometer process has also been put into industrial production, and it is expected that the 16-nanometer process will be developed in 2016. However, China still stays at the level of 0.18 micron, 90 nm and 65 nm, and only a few enterprises have 45 nm technology.

"By 2015, China will have several 8-inch and 12-inch production lines of 45-90 nanometers. In 2022, it entered the forefront of the world. " Wang Zhanguo said.

However, with the improvement of integration, silicon wafers will encounter many difficulties, such as the sharp increase in chip power consumption, which is very likely to melt the silicon wafers.

Internationally, it is predicted that it will reach the "limit" size of 10 nanometers in 2022. Therefore, silicon-based microelectronics technology will eventually be unable to meet the growing demand for information. At present, people begin to place their hopes on developing new semiconductor materials and new technologies.

Wang Zhanguo introduced that the second generation of semiconductor materials, such as gallium arsenide (GaAs) and indium phosphide (InP), constantly challenged silicon. It can improve the speed of devices and circuits, and solve the problems caused by the increase of power consumption due to the improvement of integration.

Materials such as GaAs and InP are widely used in satellite communication, mobile communication, optical communication, GPS navigation and other fields. GaAs with diameters of 2, 4 and 6 inches have been commercialized, and 8-inch GaAs has also been successfully developed in the laboratory.

Wang Zhanguo said that the third generation semiconductor materials, such as gallium nitride, silicon carbide and zinc oxide, have also developed rapidly, and these materials are all wide band gap semiconductor materials. It has the characteristics of wide band gap, high breakdown voltage, high thermal conductivity, fast electron saturation drift speed and low dielectric constant, and can be widely used in many fields.

For example, in the aspect of semiconductor white lighting, Wang Zhanguo predicts that by 2015, China will develop a semiconductor lighting lamp with 150lm/W, and the voltage only needs 3~4 volts, which is very safe and energy-saving.

Wang Zhanguo believes that the development trend of semiconductor materials is from three-dimensional materials to low-dimensional materials. At present, low-dimensional materials based on GaAs and InP have developed very well and are widely used in the fields of optical communication, mobile communication and microwave communication.

In fact, these low-dimensional semiconductor materials are nano-materials. Wang Zhanguo said that the application of semiconductor nano-science and technology will control and manufacture powerful and superior artificial microstructure materials and devices, appliances and circuits based on them at the atomic, molecular and nano-scale levels, which is very likely to trigger a new technological revolution and make mankind enter the unpredictable quantum world.