China's 2D semiconductor industry chain is rapidly taking shape

Two-dimensional semiconductors, also known as atomic-layer semiconductors, are semiconductor materials with a core functional layer thickness of just a single or few atomic layers, exemplified by transition metal dichalcogenides such as molybdenum disulfide. They are among the key materials for the post-Moore era. As silicon-based chip manufacturing approaches its physical limits, traditional silicon-channel semiconductor materials have nearly reached their performance ceiling. Two-dimensional semiconductors—such as molybdenum disulfide, tungsten diselenide, and indium selenide—leverage their inherent atomic-scale thickness to achieve naturally strong gate control at short channel lengths with wafer-scale atomic flatness, making them the most promising non-silicon materials for the post-Moore era.

A global industry consensus is rapidly taking shape. Leading international wafer manufacturers such as TSMC, Intel, and Samsung, along with top research institutions like IMEC and IRDS, have clearly positioned themselves in the two-dimensional semiconductor sector, predicting that it will serve as a core component in heterogeneous integration systems beyond the 1nm node. In June 2026, TSMC, in collaboration with ASML and IMEC, unveiled the first integration of 2D n/pFETs with a 50 nm contact gate pitch on a 300 mm wafer at the VLSI Symposium, signaling that major global players are accelerating the transition of 2D transistors from lab research to mass production. In this context, China’s industrial chain has also accelerated full-chain development, achieving breakthroughs across material preparation, equipment self-reliance, chip integration, and ecosystem building—marking the formation of a cohesive 2D semiconductor industry chain.

Two-dimensional semiconductors are regarded as key materials for chip manufacturing in the post-silicon era, but large-scale, high-quality wafer fabrication of two-dimensional semiconductor materials is a prerequisite for their industrial application. Among these, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) are critical technologies for achieving large-scale manufacturing of two-dimensional semiconductor materials in the future.

In the field of device and material growth, Professor Wang Xinan’s team at Nanjing University, in collaboration with its industrial transformation platform, Jiyue Xintech, has established a closed-loop system integrating academic innovation, equipment development, and process validation, achieving significant advances in wafer-scale single-crystal two-dimensional semiconductor fabrication. In October 2025, the team, leveraging the Oxy-MOCVD 200 ultra equipment developed independently by Jiyue Xintech (with 100% domestically sourced core components), pioneered the world’s first mass production of 6-inch single-crystal two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductors through innovative substrate engineering. The process is compatible with multiple materials including MoS₂, WS₂, and WSe₂, achieving a unidirectional domain alignment rate exceeding 99% on 150-mm wafers. In January 2026, in collaboration with Professor Wang Jinlan’s team at Southeast University, the team developed a novel oxygen-assisted metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (oxy-MOCVD) technology, overcoming critical bottlenecks in growth kinetics control. This breakthrough increased the average domain size of MoS₂ from hundreds of nanometers to hundreds of micrometers, solving the challenge of large-area uniform growth for mass production, while simultaneously eliminating carbon contamination at its source. Based on this process, Jiyue Xintech has completed deep customization and upgrades of its equipment, enabling plug-and-play process capabilities for downstream users. The current technology portfolio now covers mainstream two-dimensional semiconductor materials including MoS₂, MoSe₂, WS₂, and WSe₂. Building on this foundation, Jiyue Xintech has further achieved the world’s first mass production of 8-inch two-dimensional semiconductor single crystals. The products have been adopted by leading research institutions such as the University of Cambridge and Fudan University, and partnerships have been established with downstream chip manufacturers, successfully bridging the critical gap from laboratory samples to industrial-grade materials.

In addition to mainstream n-type materials, the gap in wafer-scale fabrication of p-type two-dimensional semiconductors has now been closed. Similar to silicon-based electronic devices, wafer-scale single-crystal n-type and p-type two-dimensional semiconductors are the foundation and prerequisite for building two-dimensional CMOS integrated circuits. To date, researchers have developed numerous n-type two-dimensional semiconductor materials, among which MoS₂ and WS₂ have already achieved wafer-scale single-crystal fabrication. However, p-type two-dimensional semiconductors combining high mobility with excellent stability remain extremely scarce, and achieving wafer-scale single-crystal growth of such materials is even more challenging. In July 2026, a team from the Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, achieved a breakthrough by successfully fabricating large-area, high-performance p-type MoSi₂N₄ monolayer single-crystal wafers. This material system was pioneered by the team; previously, only polycrystalline thin films could be produced, with grain boundaries significantly degrading device performance and making transfer and processing prone to damage. This study utilized the step-guided effect of a specialized single-crystal substrate to achieve directional growth and seamless stitching of the material, fully addressing the long-standing core deficiency in high-quality p-type materials for two-dimensional CMOS circuits.

In the field of advanced materials, Professor Peng Hailin’s research team at Peking University has, for the first time, achieved controlled fabrication of ultrathin, uniform ferroelectric films and their heterostructures at wafer scale, and constructed a high-speed ferroelectric transistor with an ultra-low operating voltage (0.8 V) and exceptional endurance (over 1.5 × 10¹² cycles). Its overall performance significantly surpasses existing industrial hafnium-based ferroelectric systems, making it the ferroelectric transistor with the lowest operating voltage, lowest energy consumption, and best endurance currently known. This marks the first demonstration worldwide of a high-performance wafer-scale two-dimensional ferroelectric material system, providing a breakthrough material foundation and a viable technological pathway for developing energy-efficient advanced chips.

Breakthroughs in materials and devices must ultimately be integrated into standardized manufacturing systems.

On July 9, 2026, an 8-inch two-dimensional semiconductor pilot production line, developed by Yuanji Microelectronics, was fully operational in Pudong, marking a milestone in China’s transition of two-dimensional semiconductors from research to industrialization. The production line was inaugurated in January 2026 and completed full equipment commissioning and process optimization in just over six months. Unlike small-scale laboratory prototyping platforms, it now possesses complete wafer fabrication and engineering prototyping capabilities, establishing a comprehensive engineering chain from material preparation to chip integration. Previously, research on two-dimensional semiconductors in China was largely confined to university laboratories, with device fabrication limited to small-batch manual prototyping, far from industrial standards. The Yuanji Microelectronics team spent a decade overcoming technical challenges to fully integrate the entire manufacturing process—from wafer growth and integration techniques to device modeling, circuit design, and packaging and testing.

The accompanying Process Design Kit (PDK) has been successfully deployed, further bridging the gap between design and manufacturing. The PDK 0.1 version, initially released by JI Microelectronics and based on an 8-inch pilot production line, is the first process IP in the two-dimensional semiconductor field compatible with mainstream EDA toolchains. It includes a complete suite of tools such as Pcells, DRC, LVS, and PEX, with a process yield exceeding 99.99%. Its performance metrics have broken international records and are now nearly equivalent to those of silicon-based processes at similar nodes, enabling future design and wafer-level manufacturing of two-dimensional circuits with up to 100,000 transistors.

With the completion of the production line and the release of the PDK, foundry services and the industrial ecosystem have been launched in tandem. Research teams from Peking University, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Nanjing University, and other institutions have signed corporate-research collaboration agreements with Yuanji Micro, officially opening wafer foundry services to the research community. Enterprises such as Xi’an Leading Institute and Shanghai 2D Star Technology have also established strategic industrial partnerships, engaging in deep collaboration on process platform sharing, technology commercialization, and ecosystem development. Local industrial support is advancing in parallel: Chuansha New Town in Shanghai is attracting upstream and downstream enterprises by leveraging Yuanji Micro’s pilot production line as a core platform; at the municipal level, 2D semiconductors have been designated as a key future industry priority, with comprehensive efforts directed toward scientific research, collaborative innovation, and ecosystem cultivation to establish a complete industrial closed loop spanning “R&D—pilot production—mass production.” Notably, approximately 70% of existing silicon-based semiconductor equipment can be reused in the 2D semiconductor production line, meaning it will not disrupt the current industrial system but instead generate new market opportunities across materials, equipment, manufacturing, and advanced packaging.

As the manufacturing ecosystem matures, 2D semiconductors are also expanding beyond logic computing into applications such as memory.

In the field of logical computing, China has successfully bridged the gap from individual devices to complex processors. In 2025, the world’s first 32-bit RISC-V architecture microprocessor based on two-dimensional semiconductor material, named "Wuji," was unveiled. Fabricated using molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂), it integrates 5,900 transistors with a thickness of just 0.7 nanometers and achieves a single-stage inverter yield rate of 99.77%. It represents full-chain independent research and development—from materials and architecture to fabrication—demonstrating the feasibility of constructing complex logic circuits using two-dimensional materials. Operating at a 1 kHz clock frequency, the processor can serially execute 37 different 32-bit RISC-V instructions, fully complying with the RV32I integer instruction set. It features high single-stage gain and ultra-low off-state leakage, making it suitable for applications such as IoT and edge computing.

In 2026, the team led by Wang Xinran and Qiu Hao from Nanjing University, in collaboration with the Suzhou National Laboratory and Huawei, fully integrated the end-to-end flow of design, process, and manufacturing for two-dimensional semiconductor chips compatible with Fab production lines. They successfully developed the world’s first molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) multi-bit parallel microprocessor, “MAGIC-1000,” setting a new record for transistor integration density in emerging non-silicon digital circuits, marking China’s entry into a new phase of industrial integration in two-dimensional semiconductor research. Leveraging cross-layer collaborative optimization, the team integrated 1,433 MoS₂ transistors within an ultra-compact chip area using a 0.5μm industrial process to realize the MAGIC-1000 microprocessor. The chip employs the RISC instruction set and consists of four main modules: an instruction decoder, register file, arithmetic logic unit, and multiplexers. Its transistor integration density increased by an order of magnitude compared to the previous international record, reaching 9,336 transistors/mm²—comparable to mature silicon processes at the same node. The chip achieved, for the first time, multi-bit parallel computation on a two-dimensional semiconductor and integrated an on-chip register file, eliminating access latency and bandwidth bottlenecks caused by off-chip memory.

In the field of memory storage, the ultra-low leakage characteristics of two-dimensional semiconductors demonstrate unique strategic value. A collaborative team from Fudan University has developed the two-dimensional semiconductor transistor with the lowest recorded leakage current to date—achieving a leakage rate equivalent to just one electron every 9.15 seconds. Based on this breakthrough, a new type of DRAM memory chip has been created, achieving an ultra-long data retention time of over 8,500 seconds at zero hold voltage, while simultaneously maintaining high-speed read/write performance and multi-capacity storage capabilities. The optimized capacitor-less, dual-transistor DRAM (2T0C) enables quasi-nonvolatile memory operation, five-bit storage precision, and nanosecond-level write speeds. Yuanji Micro has already identified DRAM as a key strategic focus. The ultra-low leakage of two-dimensional semiconductors can significantly reduce refresh power consumption, making it well-suited for early deployment in edge computing and high-performance computing scenarios, with future potential to increase DRAM capacity through 3D stacking technologies. In July 2026, the team led by Zhou Peng and Liu Chunsen at Fudan University further advanced this field by, for the first time, clearly observing nonvolatile single-electron storage behavior at room temperature, successfully fabricating a device with the world’s largest nonvolatile quantum storage window—achieving a storage window of 0.5 volts with the injection of just a single electron. This marks the pinnacle of charge-based information storage technology, reaching the ultimate limit of “one electron, one bit.”

Beyond computation and storage, two-dimensional semiconductors offer irreplaceable advantages in more specialized applications. As an ultra-thin SOI material, two-dimensional semiconductors possess unique benefits in radio frequency analog circuits, radiation-hardened communications, and brain-machine interfaces. In January this year, a radiation-hardened RF communication system based on two-dimensional semiconductors was successfully validated in orbit for the first time using the "Fudan-1" satellite platform. Additionally, two-dimensional semiconductors can be fabricated into flexible and transparent devices, enabling the development of components for cutting-edge fields such as optoelectronic sensing and quantum computing.

Currently, two-dimensional semiconductors have fully moved beyond the laboratory stage and entered a new phase of engineering validation and small-volume fabrication. From wafer-level breakthroughs in material preparation to end-to-end engineering integration in manufacturing lines, and further to practical applications in computing, storage, and other fields, every segment of China’s two-dimensional semiconductor industry chain is accelerating progress, initially establishing a complete industry ecosystem covering materials, equipment, manufacturing, design, and applications.

On the emerging frontier of two-dimensional semiconductors, international competition has fully commenced. The formation of this new industrial chain not only offers new possibilities for chip technology in the post-Moore era but also opens up a completely new dimension of competition in the global semiconductor industry landscape.

This article is from the WeChat public account "Semiconductor Industry纵横" (ID: ICViews), author: Pengcheng.