Recently, "molybdenum replacing tungsten" has become one of the hottest concepts in the capital market. In mid-June, Jinduicheng Molybdenum and Shenglong Shares hit three consecutive daily trading limits, while CMOC surged over 9% in a single day. The core catalyst behind this market frenzy came from an announcement by SK Hynix, the world's second-largest memory chip manufacturer — its 375-layer 10th-generation 3D NAND flash memory, scheduled for mass production by the end of 2026, will replace tungsten with molybdenum in word line metal gates for the first time.
Molybdenum: From "Vitamin of Steel" to Semiconductor Core Material
With a melting point as high as 2,623°C, molybdenum combines high strength with excellent electrical conductivity. In the past, approximately 80% of global molybdenum was consumed in steelmaking, earning it the nickname "vitamin of steel." Today, as 3D NAND flash memory stacking layers surpass 300, molybdenum is undergoing a transformation from a supporting material to a core functional material.
Why Is Tungsten Being Eliminated?
The higher the 3D NAND layer count, the more word lines are required, and line widths are compressed to the nanometer scale. In early generations, polysilicon was replaced by tungsten due to its high resistance. However, beyond 300 layers and line widths below 10 nanometers, tungsten reveals three critical problems:
Resistance surge: As line width decreases, tungsten's resistivity spikes dramatically, causing severe signal delays.
Space waste: Tungsten requires a titanium nitride barrier layer. In 375-layer stacks, these barrier layers consume significant vertical space.
Fluorine residue: Tungsten deposition uses tungsten hexafluoride gas, and residual fluorine atoms can corrode the dielectric layer, leading to leakage and failure.
Four Core Advantages of Molybdenum
At the same dimensions, molybdenum's resistance is 30% to 50% lower than tungsten's. It requires no barrier layer, providing a larger effective conductive cross-section. It perfectly adapts to ALD atomic layer deposition technology, and uses fluorine-free precursors, completely eliminating corrosion issues.
Molybdenum's "drawback" is that its precursor is solid at room temperature, requiring high-temperature heating and precise flow control — imposing significantly higher process demands.
The Race Among Memory Giants
Samsung took the lead: it has been using molybdenum in its metal wiring since the 286-layer 9th-generation 3D NAND, which began mass production in April 2024. Its 10th-generation product with over 400 layers is scheduled for release in the second half of 2026. SK Hynix is rapidly catching up, with the 375-layer V10 set for mass production by year-end, followed by 480-layer and 604-layer products in the pipeline. Micron is pursuing a dual-track strategy, advancing molybdenum applications in both NAND and DRAM. Kioxia and Western Digital remain in the technology validation phase with no clear mass production timeline yet.
Industry estimates indicate that Samsung's molybdenum procurement volume is expected to reach 10 tons in 2025 and 80 tons by 2030. SK Hynix will begin large-scale molybdenum adoption from 2027, with an initial annual demand of approximately 4 tons. Industry analysts project that the molybdenum replacement rate in the NAND sector will climb to 55%–75% by 2027.
Beyond NAND: Multi-Scenario Growth for Molybdenum
The DRAM sector, particularly HBM (High Bandwidth Memory), is emerging as the next growth engine. HBM vertically stacks DRAM layers to increase bandwidth, and HBM4 specifications already reach 12 to 16 layers. In this high-density stacking scenario, tungsten's shortcomings are magnified to the extreme. Molybdenum reduces contact resistance by approximately 56%, and its penetration rate in HBM4 has approached 100%.
In the longer term, the logic chip sector is also exploring molybdenum as an alternative to copper interconnects. Copper interconnects face an exponential rise in resistivity at process nodes below 10 nanometers, whereas molybdenum's shorter electron mean free path makes it less susceptible to size effects. Industry expectations suggest that logic chips will progressively adopt molybdenum interconnects within the next two to three years, potentially elevating molybdenum to a broad-based transformation in semiconductor materials.
A Rational Perspective: Semiconductor Demand Unlikely to Dominate the Molybdenum Market in the Short Term
Despite the red-hot concept, industry insiders remain pragmatic. Jinduicheng Molybdenum issued an official announcement clarifying that the company currently has no products directly applied in semiconductor memory chips. Its molybdenum sputtering targets are used in display panel production, accounting for less than 1% of revenue over the past three years and not materially impacti
ng the company's overall operations.
From a fundamental perspective, molybdenum concentrate prices have risen 30% year-to-date in 2026, but the market's foundation remains the steel industry — specialty steels, wind power steel, and other traditional end-use segments. Molybdenum demand from the semiconductor sector, while showing impressive growth, remains relatively small in volume. It will see steady advancement over the next 2 to 3 years but is unlikely to dominate the broader molybdenum market in the short term.
From molybdenum powder to molybdenum plate to semiconductor targets, this industry chain is undergoing a significant value reassessment. For molybdenum plate manufacturers, however, the true volume growth in the semiconductor market will require patient waiting — for both the certification cycle and the technology roadmap to deliver.
Post time:Sep-25-2020
