The future development of diamond in the semiconductor field generally follows a gradient trend of "heat dissipation first, then device breakthroughs." In the short term, high-value growth focuses on AI chip heat dissipation, while the medium- to long-term goal is to industrialize diamond power semiconductors. Specific development directions are as follows:
1. Short-term (1-5 years): AI chip heat dissipation will see explosive growth, accelerating industrialization.
With the surge in computing power demands for large AI models, single-chip power consumption has exceeded 1400W, pushing traditional heat dissipation materials to their physical limits. Diamond heat dissipation is currently the only solution that can meet the heat dissipation needs across the entire supply chain.
The market size will expand rapidly. The global diamond heat dissipation market is projected to reach $15.2 billion by 2030, with a rapid increase in penetration rate, gradually expanding from military and aerospace to commercial AI GPUs, data centers, and high-end consumer electronics. Chinese domestic companies have already begun expanding production to meet the surge in demand. In 2026, upstream testing volume is expected to increase more than fivefold year-on-year, and leading manufacturers have already planned new factories to go into production.
The technological direction is upgrading towards larger substrates and lower-cost synthesis. 8-inch diamond heat sinks are expected to achieve mass production by 2027, with costs gradually decreasing to meet the heat dissipation requirements of advanced packaging. Diamond/metal composite material technology is mature, with precisely controllable thermal expansion coefficients, and perfect compatibility with silicon chips, gradually becoming the standard configuration for high-end, high-power chips.
2. Mid-term (5-10 years): Diamond power semiconductors gradually become commercially available, achieving breakthroughs in high-end fields.
As a core material for fourth-generation semiconductors, diamond has higher technological barriers, but its performance advantages are extremely prominent:
First to achieve commercialization in high-voltage and extreme environment scenarios: New energy vehicles' 800V+ high-voltage platforms, aerospace electronics, and satellite communications have extremely high requirements for device withstand voltage and heat dissipation, and are less sensitive to price. These will be the first application scenarios for diamond power devices, directly improving the power conversion efficiency of the entire vehicle and reducing the size and weight of the heat dissipation system.
Breakthroughs in technological bottlenecks continue: The core challenges of n-type doping and large-size single crystal preparation are being gradually overcome. Japan is expected to commercialize the first batch of diamond power devices between 2025 and 2030. my country is also continuously advancing the research and development of core technologies and has achieved a room temperature hole mobility of 1650 cm²/(V·s), laying the foundation for high-performance devices.
