Gallium and Germanium Explained: Sources, Chip Uses and Export Controls

Gallium and germanium are minor metals that almost nobody mines on purpose. Gallium is recovered as a by-product of refining bauxite into alumina, and to a lesser extent from zinc residues; germanium comes from zinc ores and coal fly ash. Chips need them for gallium nitride and gallium arsenide transistors, LEDs and lasers, and for germanium fibre optics, infrared lenses and silicon germanium. China produces about 99% of the world's primary gallium and is the leading germanium producer, and since August 2023 it has required export licences for both.

That is the short answer. The longer one matters for anyone who designs radios, power supplies, optical networks or thermal cameras, or who buys the boards that contain them, because the supply chain behind two small entries on a bill of materials runs through a handful of refineries and a growing stack of trade measures. This post goes one level deeper than our rare earth elements explainer and our walk through how semiconductors are made from sand to chip. For the policy side of chips themselves, see semiconductor fab security and export controls.

Figures and control dates below come from the issuing authorities: the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the Federal Register, the White House and the EU Official Journal. Prices are USGS commodity statistics, not Safeguard prices.

Key takeaways

• Both are by-products. Gallium averages about 50 parts per million in bauxite; germanium rides along in zinc ores and lignite coal. Output depends on alumina and zinc plants running recovery circuits.
• Supply is concentrated. USGS estimates China produced 99% of the world's primary low purity gallium in 2025 (about 900 of 900 tonnes, rounded) and was the leading producer and exporter of germanium metal. The United States has recovered no primary gallium since 1987.
• The uses are hard to swap out. USGS reports that integrated circuits took 73% of U.S. gallium consumption and optoelectronic devices 26%. Germanium's main U.S. end uses, in descending order, are fibre optics, infrared optics, semiconductors and solar cells, and radiation detectors.
• Controls have changed four times in three years. China's licensing requirement started in August 2023. MOFCOM Announcement No. 46 of 2024 (3 December 2024) said licences for gallium and germanium exports to the United States would in principle not be granted. MOFCOM Announcement No. 72 of 2025 (9 November 2025) suspended that clause until 27 November 2026. The base licensing requirement was not withdrawn by that suspension.
• Both sit on every major critical list. The USGS 2022 list (50 minerals) and the final 2025 list (60 minerals) include both. The EU Critical Raw Materials Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1252) names both as strategic and critical raw materials.
• Stockpiles do not fix refining. A stock of metal buys months; only new recovery and high purity refining capacity changes the structure.
• Safeguard's role is indirect. Safeguard does not analyse materials or hardware. It covers the software around these devices, such as firmware build repositories and design tool containers, and their open source dependencies.

What are gallium and germanium?

Gallium (symbol Ga, atomic number 31) is a soft, silvery metal in group 13 of the periodic table, the same column as aluminium. It melts at about 29.8 °C, so it turns liquid in a warm hand. Its chemistry follows aluminium closely, which is exactly why it ends up in bauxite.

Germanium (Ge, atomic number 32) sits one column to the right, in group 14 with carbon and silicon. It is a grey, brittle metalloid and a semiconductor in its own right. Germanium dominated early transistors before silicon took over; today it is valued more for what it does to light and to silicon when alloyed with it.

Neither element is a rare earth. The rare earths are the 15 lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium, and they have a different chemistry, different ores and different refining routes. The confusion arises because coverage groups them all under "critical minerals".

Why are they by-products rather than mined directly?

Neither element forms large ore bodies of its own that are worth mining. Both are dispersed at parts per million levels through ores mined for something else.

Gallium and bauxite. USGS says most gallium is produced as a by-product of processing bauxite and the remainder from zinc processing residues, and that the average gallium content of bauxite is 50 parts per million. In the Bayer process, bauxite is digested in hot caustic soda to dissolve aluminium as sodium aluminate. Gallium, chemically similar, dissolves too and builds up in the recirculating liquor. A refinery that wants gallium adds a side stream, typically an ion exchange or solvent extraction step that pulls gallium out of that liquor, followed by electrolysis to make crude metal. A refinery without that side stream simply leaves the gallium in its process. USGS estimates gallium contained in world bauxite resources exceeds 1 million tons, so geology is not the constraint. Recovery circuits are.

Germanium and zinc. USGS says germanium resources are associated with certain zinc and lead zinc copper sulfide ores and lignite coal deposits. In zinc processing, germanium follows the zinc into concentrate and then into smelter residues and leach solutions, where it can be precipitated and concentrated. The final 2025 U.S. list of critical minerals records germanium as a by-product of "zinc and coal fly ash", and gallium as a by-product of "bauxite and zinc".

The economics follow. An alumina refinery or zinc smelter earns almost all its revenue from its main product, so a higher gallium price does not bring more bauxite out of the ground. It only justifies recovery circuits at existing plants, which takes capital, permits and time. Supply responds slowly, and the location of existing circuits decides who controls it.

Where does production concentrate?

Gallium

USGS reports world primary low purity gallium production and capacity in kilograms. Converted to tonnes:

Source: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, Gallium. China figures are USGS estimates based on Asian Metal Ltd.

USGS states that China accounted for 99% of worldwide primary low purity gallium production. Germany, Hungary and Kazakhstan ceased primary production in 2016, 2015 and 2013, and Ukraine most likely ceased in 2022. Those countries still appear in the "other countries" capacity line, which is why world capacity is roughly double world output. USGS lists new gallium projects announced in Australia, Canada, Greece, Kazakhstan and the Republic of Korea.

The United States has not recovered primary gallium since 1987. One company in New York refines high purity gallium from imported low purity metal and new scrap. USGS estimates U.S. reported consumption at 19,000 kg in 2025 with net import reliance of 100%. Import sources for gallium metal from 2021 to 2024 were Canada 28%, Japan 22%, China 18%, Germany 16% and other 16%.

Germanium

Germanium data are thinner. USGS says most producers do not report germanium output, so it publishes no world production table. It states that germanium is processed or recycled commercially in only a few countries, including the United States, Belgium, Canada, China, Germany and Russia, with China the leading producer. Germanium rich deposits and tailings in operation or development are in China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Russia and the United States.

In the U.S., an Alaska mine produced germanium bearing zinc concentrates in 2025, some refined in Canada; a Tennessee mine has been suspended since November 2023. Import sources for germanium metal from 2021 to 2024 were China 41%, Belgium 27%, Germany 25%, Russia 3% and other 4%.

USGS gives a clear picture of the effect of controls on flows. China's reported exports of germanium metal for January to September 2025 fell to 7,520 kg, from 18,787 kg in the same period of 2024 and 36,656 kg in 2023. U.S. imports of germanium metal fell by an estimated 67% in 2025, to 7,000 kg, which USGS attributes to China's 2024 ban on germanium exports to the United States.

What happened to prices?

These are commodity statistics as USGS reports them, attributed and dated:

Sources: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 (gallium import values from the U.S. Census Bureau; germanium prices from Argus Media, Argus Non-Ferrous Markets, as cited by USGS).

USGS also reports that between January and October 2025 the European germanium metal price rose from $3,150 per kg to $5,380 per kg, and germanium dioxide from $2,200 to $2,850 per kg. The gallium figure is an average customs value of imports, not an exchange price. Neither series is a purchase quote.

Why do chips and devices need gallium?

Silicon has a modest band gap (about 1.1 eV) and relatively slow electrons; gallium compounds fill the gaps. USGS describes the end uses: gallium arsenide (GaAs) is used to make compound semiconductor wafers for integrated circuits and optoelectronic devices, including laser diodes, LEDs, photodetectors and solar cells, and gallium nitride (GaN) is used for integrated circuits and optoelectronic devices. Integrated circuits accounted for 73% of U.S. gallium consumption and optoelectronics 26%.

Gallium arsenide: RF front ends and lasers

GaAs has higher electron mobility than silicon and a direct band gap of about 1.4 eV. High electron mobility makes GaAs transistors fast and low noise at radio frequencies, which is why GaAs power amplifiers and switches have long sat in phone and Wi-Fi front ends. A direct band gap means GaAs emits light efficiently, which silicon does not, so GaAs and its alloys (such as aluminium gallium arsenide) are used for infrared LEDs and laser diodes, including the vertical cavity lasers used in short reach optical links and depth sensing.

Gallium nitride: power and RF

GaN has a wide band gap of about 3.4 eV. A wider band gap means the material can hold a much larger electric field before breaking down, so a GaN transistor can block high voltage in a thin layer and switch fast with low losses. That is why GaN appears in compact fast chargers, server and telecom power supplies, and increasingly in power conversion for data centres. In RF, GaN high electron mobility transistors deliver high power at high frequency, which suits radar, satellite links and cellular base station amplifiers.

GaN is also behind blue and white LEDs: a white LED is usually a blue indium gallium nitride emitter under a phosphor.

USGS is explicit about substitution limits: in many defence related applications, GaAs and GaN based integrated circuits are used because of their unique properties, and no effective substitutes exist.

Why do chips and devices need germanium?

Fibre optics

The largest U.S. end use, per USGS, is fibre optics. Germanium dioxide and germanium tetrachloride are consumed in making the fibre glass used for data networking and telecommunications. Germanium raises the refractive index of silica, so doping the fibre core with germanium creates the index step that keeps light guided down the core. Every long haul and data centre single mode fibre relies on that core doping or a close alternative.

Infrared optics

Germanium is transparent to long wave infrared light, roughly 8 to 14 micrometres, the band where warm objects glow. Germanium metal is machined into lenses and windows for thermal cameras and infrared systems used in commercial and government markets. USGS lists chalcogenide glass as a substitute in infrared applications, which is a real but partial alternative because it has different optical and mechanical properties.

Silicon germanium and semiconductor uses

Adding germanium to silicon creates silicon germanium (SiGe), which has a slightly smaller band gap and a larger lattice. SiGe is used in heterojunction bipolar transistors for high frequency radio and optical transceivers, and strained SiGe layers are used to boost carrier mobility in advanced logic transistors. USGS notes that germanium compounds are consumed to produce germane gas used in certain semiconductor and solar cell manufacturing. The quantities per chip are small, but the processes that use them are specific and hard to swap.

Space solar cells and radiation detectors

Germanium wafers are substrates for multijunction solar cells used in space, and high purity germanium crystals are the core of gamma ray spectrometers.

How is high purity gallium and germanium refined?

Crude by-product metal is nowhere near pure enough for a wafer. The chain from ore to substrate has several steps, and most of the value and difficulty sits in the later ones.

Purity grades: what 6N and 7N mean

Purity is often written as a count of nines. 4N is 99.99%, 6N is 99.9999% and 7N is 99.99999%. Each extra nine cuts total impurities by a factor of ten. At 6N, total impurities are 1 part per million; at 7N, 0.1 parts per million.

Why does that matter for wafers? Semiconductors work by deliberately adding tiny, controlled amounts of dopant atoms to set where electrons and holes go, as our doping and p n junctions explainer shows. Unwanted impurities act as uncontrolled dopants or as traps that capture carriers. For a GaAs or GaN device designed around a precise carrier density, stray impurities at parts per million levels can shift threshold voltages, raise leakage, shorten carrier lifetimes and scatter light in lasers. Radiation detectors are even more demanding, because any trap in the crystal swallows part of the signal. So the purity number is not a marketing figure; it is a device yield figure.

From raw material to finished wafer

Steps 4 to 7 are where concentration bites. Capacity to make 6N and 7N metal, GaAs substrates and electronic grade germanium is held by relatively few plants, and building new ones means qualifying material with device makers, which takes many months even after the plant runs.

How zone refining works

Zone refining exploits a simple fact: most impurities prefer to stay in the liquid when a melt freezes. A bar of metal is passed slowly through a narrow heater, so a thin molten zone travels from one end to the other. As the zone moves, the metal freezing behind it is purer than the liquid, and impurities are swept along with the zone toward the far end. Repeating the pass many times concentrates impurities at one end, which is cut off and recycled. Germanium was one of the first materials purified this way, in the early transistor era, and the method remains standard for germanium and other semiconductor materials. Gallium's very low melting point also allows purification by controlled crystallisation, where pure solid forms first from a slowly cooled melt.

Why purity and crystal quality are separate problems

High purity metal is necessary but not sufficient; a wafer also needs a near perfect crystal lattice. GaN is usually grown as thin epitaxial layers on silicon carbide, sapphire or silicon wafers, which shifts part of the supply question to epitaxy capacity and precursors such as trimethylgallium. That is one reason control lists name compounds and epitaxial materials, not only the metal.

What export controls apply?

This section sticks to the issuing authorities' own texts. Where a later measure changed an earlier one, both are shown.

Timeline

China's 2023 licensing requirement

China's Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs issued Announcement No. 23 of 2023 under China's Export Control Law. It made exports of listed gallium and germanium items subject to a dual use export licence. USGS records that China implemented gallium export controls and a germanium export licensing program in August 2023. Licensing is not a ban: exporters apply, MOFCOM reviews end users and end uses, and approved shipments proceed, with added time and paperwork.

We could not retrieve the MOFCOM page for the 2023 announcement directly while writing this post, so we have not reproduced its item list. If you need the exact items and customs codes, read the announcement on mofcom.gov.cn rather than a summary.

The December 2024 escalation

MOFCOM Announcement No. 46 of 2024, dated 3 December 2024 and effective on publication, did three things according to its text:

1. It prohibited exports of dual use items to U.S. military users or for military uses.
2. It stated that, in principle, licences would not be granted for exports of gallium, germanium, antimony and superhard materials related dual use items to the United States, and it applied stricter end user and end use review to graphite exports to the United States.
3. It warned that organisations and individuals in any country or region that transfer relevant Chinese origin dual use items to the United States in violation of these provisions would be pursued under the law.

The third point reaches transfers through third countries, not only direct exports.

USGS describes this as China's December 2024 ban on gallium and germanium exports to the United States.

The November 2025 suspension

On 1 November 2025, a White House fact sheet stated that China would issue general licences valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite for the benefit of U.S. end users and their suppliers around the world, and described the general licence as "the de facto removal of controls China imposed since 2023". MOFCOM's own text is narrower and more precise. Announcement No. 72 of 2025, dated 9 November 2025, suspends clause 2 of Announcement No. 46 of 2024 from that date until 27 November 2026. It does not suspend clause 1, the ban on exports to U.S. military users and uses, and it does not revoke the 2023 licensing requirement. USGS summarised the change as China lifting its ban on gallium exports to the United States for one year.

As of this post, the suspension has about a month left. Any extension or replacement will come as a new MOFCOM announcement.

What the United States controls

The U.S. response has two strands: its own export controls on advanced gallium materials, and industrial policy to restart domestic supply.

On export controls, the BIS interim final rule of 15 August 2022 added controls on two substrates of ultra wide band gap semiconductors, gallium oxide and diamond, under ECCNs 3C005.a and .b and 3C006, with related technology under 3E003. BIS stated that these items met the criteria of Section 1758 of the Export Control Reform Act for emerging and foundational technologies and implemented December 2021 Wassenaar Arrangement decisions. For other compound semiconductor items, check the current Commerce Control List on bis.gov. Our posts on ITAR and EAR for software cover how classification works in practice.

On supply, USGS reports that in September 2025 the U.S. Department of Energy announced up to $6 million for research and development to help establish a domestic gallium supply chain, aimed at recovering gallium from alumina refining or zinc smelting. In November 2025, the Department of War granted a $29.9 million Defense Production Act Title III award to a U.S. company to develop a demonstration facility in Louisiana to recover gallium and scandium from industrial waste. For germanium, USGS notes that in August 2025 the Department of Energy announced initiatives totalling $1 billion for critical minerals and materials, including funding for refining and alloying germanium for semiconductors and for recovering by-products such as germanium from existing industrial processes.

What the European Union does

The EU's main instrument is the Critical Raw Materials Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 of 11 April 2024, published in the Official Journal on 3 May 2024 and in force from the twentieth day after publication. It is a supply security framework, not an export control. Its Article 5 sets 2030 benchmarks for strategic raw materials: EU capacity for at least 10% of annual consumption from extraction, at least 40% from processing and at least 25% from recycling, and no more than 65% of annual consumption of any strategic raw material at any relevant stage of processing from a single third country. Other articles cover exploration programmes (Article 19), strategic stocks (Articles 22 and 23), company risk preparedness (Article 24) and joint purchasing (Article 25).

Are gallium and germanium on critical minerals lists?

Yes, on all of the main ones.

What does being on a list change?

A list does not move a single kilogram of metal by itself. It changes which tools governments can use.

In the United States, the list steers federal programmes such as research funding, Defense Production Act awards and stockpile planning.

In the EU, strategic status under Annex I is the more consequential one. Only strategic raw materials count toward the Article 5 benchmarks, and projects that extract, process or recycle them can apply for Strategic Project status, which brings faster permitting timelines and coordinated financing support. Under Article 11, permitting for Strategic Projects should not exceed 27 months for extraction and 15 months for processing or recycling. Under Article 24, large companies that use strategic raw materials to make products such as batteries, renewable energy equipment, data transmission and storage equipment, mobile electronic devices, drones, satellites or advanced chips must, at least every three years, assess their strategic raw material supply chain risk, including a map of where those materials are extracted, processed or recycled.

For a hardware company, the practical change is that someone in your organisation will be asked for that map. The rest of this post helps you draw it.

Comparison: gallium, germanium, indium and rare earths

Sources: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 entries for gallium, germanium, indium and rare earths; MOFCOM Announcements No. 46 of 2024 and No. 72 of 2025.

The table shows the pattern. Gallium, germanium and indium are all minor by-products where a few refineries decide supply. Rare earths are mined as primary products, and the bottleneck is separation and magnet making. Our rare earth explainer and how NdFeB magnets are made cover that side.

Recycling, substitution and stockpiles

Recycling

Recycling helps most where scrap is clean and concentrated, which means manufacturing scrap rather than end of life products.

• Gallium. USGS reports no old scrap (end of life) recycling in the United States, but substantial new scrap from GaAs device manufacturing is reprocessed at one New York facility. A phone's amplifier holds a tiny amount of gallium spread across a complex board, so end of life recovery remains marginal.
• Germanium. USGS says the United States can recycle both new and old germanium scrap. Machining swarf from infrared optics is routinely recycled, infrared lenses and windows from decommissioned military equipment are recovered, germanium is recycled from fibre manufacturing waste, and germanium solar cell substrates are recycled. USGS also notes that the available data are not enough to estimate secondary production reliably.

Substitution

Substitution is real but uneven. Silicon power devices and silicon carbide compete with GaN in power conversion, but at different voltage, frequency and size trade offs. Silicon CMOS amplifiers have replaced some GaAs in mid tier handsets. Chalcogenide glasses replace germanium in some infrared lenses. Each swap costs performance, a redesign and a requalification. For GaN radar amplifiers and many other defence uses, USGS states that no effective substitutes exist.

Stockpiles

Stockpiles buy time; they do not create refining capacity. USGS reports no government stockpile for gallium. For germanium, the National Defense Stockpile listed potential disposals of 5,000 kg (gross weight) for fiscal year 2025, and USGS notes that the fiscal year 2026 Annual Materials Plan was not released. Industry holds working stocks: USGS reports U.S. consumer gallium stocks of about 3,400 kg at year end 2025, against reported consumption of about 19,000 kg in the same year.

As a rough check, 3,400 kg of stocks divided by 19,000 kg a year of consumption is about 0.18 years, roughly two months of national use. After that, the only lasting answers are new supply, recycling or redesign.

The EU approach is coordination rather than a single EU stockpile. Article 22 of the CRMA has Member States report the state of their strategic stocks, and Article 23 asks the Commission to share, by 24 May 2026 and every two years after, a draft benchmark for a safe level of stocks. The regulation states that it does not oblige Member States to hold or release stocks.

Step by step: map your exposure to gallium and germanium

This walkthrough answers one question for an engineering or procurement team: where do gallium and germanium sit in our products, and what happens if a supply route changes? The commands only read and summarise.

Step 1: pull the source data

Download the current USGS summaries so your notes cite the same figures as your report.

mkdir -p ~/mineral-exposure/sources && cd ~/mineral-exposure/sources
for m in gallium germanium indium rare-earths; do
  curl -fsSL -o "mcs2026-$m.pdf" \
    "https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-$m.pdf"
done
ls -l

Step 2: extract the figures you will quote

# pdftotext ships with poppler (brew install poppler, or apt install poppler-utils)
for f in mcs2026-*.pdf; do pdftotext -layout "$f" "${f%.pdf}.txt"; done
grep -n "China accounted\|Price\|Net import reliance" mcs2026-gallium.txt
grep -n "Price\|exports of germanium metal" mcs2026-germanium.txt

Keep the page and the year with each number. USGS revises earlier years, so a 2024 figure in the 2026 edition can differ from the same year in the 2025 edition.

Step 3: find gallium and germanium parts in your bill of materials

Most BOM exports are CSV. Search the description and manufacturer part number columns for the compound names and common technology terms.

cd ~/mineral-exposure
# Adjust the file name and columns to match your BOM export
grep -i -E "GaN|gallium|GaAs|InGaN|AlGaAs|SiGe|germanium|IR lens|thermal|fiber|fibre|LED|laser|VCSEL" bom.csv \
  > candidates.csv
wc -l candidates.csv

Many descriptions omit the substrate, so for each component family (power stage, RF front end, optical transceiver, LEDs, thermal module) ask the supplier which technology it uses.

Step 4: classify each candidate

Build a simple table with one row per part: technology (GaN on silicon, GaN on silicon carbide, GaAs, SiGe, germanium optics, doped fibre), supplier, country of wafer fabrication, alternate sources and redesign effort.

python3 - <<'EOF'
import csv
rows = list(csv.DictReader(open("candidates.csv")))
fields = ["part", "technology", "supplier", "fab_country", "alt_source", "redesign_effort"]
with open("exposure.csv", "w", newline="") as f:
    w = csv.DictWriter(f, fieldnames=fields)
    w.writeheader()
    for r in rows:
        w.writerow({"part": r.get("MPN", ""), "technology": "", "supplier": r.get("Manufacturer", ""),
                    "fab_country": "", "alt_source": "", "redesign_effort": ""})
print(len(rows), "rows written to exposure.csv")
EOF

Fill the blank columns from supplier answers and datasheets. A part with no alternate source and a high redesign effort is your real exposure.

Step 5: record the control status that applies to you

For each technology, note the measures in force on the day you check, linked to the issuing authority, and add a review date. The MOFCOM suspension runs until 27 November 2026, so any plan that depends on it needs a check after that date.

Step 6: decide the response per part

Step 7: keep the software side of the same products inventoried

The devices that carry GaN and GaAs parts also run firmware, drivers and management software. Treat that as a second bill of materials. If you build firmware or device management services in your own repositories, generate an SBOM and check it for known vulnerable open source components at the same cadence as the materials review.

# From the root of a firmware or device service repository
safeguard scan --dir .
# Results are written as JSON under ./output
ls output/

This step is where Safeguard applies; the earlier steps do not need it.

Common mistakes

• Calling gallium and germanium rare earths. They are not lanthanides and follow different ores and refining routes. Mixing them up leads to the wrong supplier questions and the wrong control lists.
• Assuming a stockpile solves refining capacity. A stock of metal buys weeks or months. It does not create 6N refining, GaAs substrate growth or epitaxy capacity, which take years to build and qualify.
• Counting import countries instead of origin. U.S. gallium imports come mostly from Canada, Japan and Germany by shipping country, but much of that metal is refined from primary gallium produced in China. Ask for origin of the primary metal.
• Reading the White House summary as the legal text. The 1 November 2025 fact sheet describes a commitment. MOFCOM's Announcement No. 72 is the legal text, and it suspends only one clause, until a fixed date.
• Ignoring third country transfers. Announcement No. 46 explicitly covers transfers of Chinese origin items to the United States by organisations in any country. Distributors and contract manufacturers outside China are in scope of that warning.
• Treating "GaN" as one thing. GaN on silicon, GaN on silicon carbide and GaN on sapphire have different substrate supply chains. Ask which one your part uses.
• Overlooking germanium in fibre. Teams think of germanium as infrared optics and forget that optical networking depends on germanium doped fibre and on germanium tetrachloride supply.

FAQ

Is gallium a rare earth element?

No. Gallium is a group 13 metal, chemically similar to aluminium. The rare earths are the 15 lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium. Gallium and the rare earths are both on critical minerals lists and both have been subject to Chinese export controls, which is why they are often mentioned together.

Where does gallium come from?

Mostly from alumina refineries that process bauxite with the Bayer process, with the rest from zinc processing residues. USGS reports bauxite averages 50 parts per million gallium. China produced about 99% of the world's primary low purity gallium in 2025, according to USGS.

Why are gallium and germanium important for chips?

Gallium makes compound semiconductors: GaN for power converters, RF amplifiers and LEDs, and GaAs for RF front ends and lasers. Germanium is used in silicon germanium transistors, germane gas for some processes, fibre optic cores, infrared lenses, space solar cells and radiation detectors.

Did China ban gallium and germanium exports?

China requires export licences for listed gallium and germanium items, implemented in August 2023. In December 2024 MOFCOM said licences for exports of these items to the United States would in principle not be granted. In November 2025 MOFCOM suspended that U.S. specific clause until 27 November 2026. The licensing requirement and the ban on exports to U.S. military users remain.

When does China's suspension of the gallium export ban to the US end?

MOFCOM Announcement No. 72 of 2025 suspends clause 2 of Announcement No. 46 of 2024 until 27 November 2026. Check mofcom.gov.cn after that date for any extension or replacement.

Are gallium and germanium critical minerals in the US and EU?

Yes. Both are on the USGS 2022 list and the final 2025 list of critical minerals, and on both the strategic (Annex I) and critical (Annex II) lists of the EU Critical Raw Materials Act.

Can GaN be replaced with silicon?

Sometimes, at a cost. Silicon MOSFETs and silicon carbide devices can do many power conversion jobs that GaN does, with different size, efficiency and frequency trade offs. In high power RF and many defence systems, USGS states there are no effective substitutes for GaAs and GaN.

What does 6N or 7N gallium mean?

It is a purity count of nines. 6N is 99.9999% pure (1 part per million impurities in total), and 7N is 99.99999% (0.1 part per million). Electronic devices need this because stray impurities behave like unwanted dopants or traps.

Where Safeguard fits

Safeguard does not analyse materials, model mineral supply, assess hardware, scan firmware binaries or generate hardware bills of materials, and its models are single purpose security models, not science tools. Its fit is indirect: the software around GaN power supplies, RF modules, optical transceivers and thermal cameras, such as firmware source you build yourself, device management services and the containers that run engineering tools. Safeguard scans those repositories, container images and SBOM files for known vulnerable open source components, shows which projects carry a given component version, and can open fix pull requests when a fixed version exists (autonomous remediation is generally available and ships switched off).

A supply chain review that maps the metals in a product is a natural moment to map its open source dependencies too, because the same product ships both. Firmware toolchains, drivers and device services pull in open source components that need patching like any other software, so the section below applies to the code and images you build, not to the minerals or the chips.

Fix it without waiting for upstream

Whatever the vulnerability, most of the risk sits in two gaps. The first is the time between a fix being published and that fix actually running in your production builds. The second, and worse, is the time before any fix exists at all, while a maintainer works out a patch and a release schedule. Waiting through both gaps is a habit, not a requirement. Safeguard gives teams three ways to close them.

1. Autonomous remediation: pull requests, not tickets

When a fixed version exists, Safeguard's Griffin models open a tested, policy gated pull request that moves the affected dependency to the safe version. You can run it on one repository or in bulk across every project that carries the vulnerable version. Remediation categories include dependencies, licenses, security posture and findings, and each one is set separately. Reachability analysis ranks the vulnerable code paths your application actually calls first, so the first pull requests you merge are the ones that matter most. Autonomous remediation ships switched off, with every category set to Manual, so your team decides how much runs on its own and what still needs a human approval.

2. Gold Open Source: the safe version in seconds, free

gold.safeguard.sh is free and needs no login. Search any CVE or package to see affected and fixed versions, CVSS, EPSS, CISA KEV status and a recommended safe version, or use the "Am I affected?" checker. The same data is available through a free read API, README status badges and RSS threat feeds.

3. Gold Registry: start from components that are already fixed

Gold Registry provides hardened, drop in replacements for upstream packages and container images. Every Gold artifact is held continuously to zero exploitable critical or high CVEs and a completed license check, with signed build provenance (signed with Safeguard's key and verifiable with cosign, SLSA Build Level 3 as the design target) and a public evidence page you can hand to an auditor. An artifact loses its Gold badge if it regresses. Teams can point their own package directory at the registry so hardened equivalents resolve without changing how developers install anything.

When upstream has no fix yet, or will not ship one, Safeguard first works to get the fix accepted upstream. If the issue is severe or upstream will not move, Safeguard builds a fork, fixes the vulnerability there and publishes a hardened Gold build, so you are not stuck on a maintainer's release schedule. You can also request a hardened, compatibility tested build of a specific package. Ask which packages it covers before you plan around it.

One honest limit: when the vulnerable code lives in a vendor appliance, a hosted service or an operating system runtime you do not build yourself, the fix still has to come from that vendor or distribution. The steps above apply to the open source dependencies and container images you build and ship, which is where most teams carry the largest and least tracked share of their exposure.

See how Safeguard would help

These demos show dependency, image and remediation workflows. They do not model mineral supply, classify parts for export control or analyse chips. You can download Safeguard and follow the CLI docs to try them on your own projects.

This demo sets up the Safeguard runner on your own machine, approves it with its device code and scans from the terminal. Pointed at the container image your team uses for firmware builds or for a device telemetry service, the same scan lists the packages and versions inside and their known vulnerabilities.

Click through it at your own pace, or open it full screen.

This demo is a real CLI session: asked to fix the lodash CVE in a repository, the assistant reads the finding and the advisory, asks before any command that changes something, moves lodash to 4.17.21, runs npm install and npm test with your approval, and pushes nothing. The same flow applies to a vulnerable library in a web dashboard for a power supply or a camera fleet.

Click through it at your own pace, or open it full screen.

This demo connects Claude to the Safeguard MCP server with OAuth and lets you choose which tools Claude can use. You can then ask which of your projects ship a given package version, such as a TLS or USB library shared by several device services, and get the answer from your own scan data.

Click through it at your own pace, or open it full screen.

Quick check

Sources

• USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Gallium (PDF)
• USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Germanium (PDF)
• USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Indium (PDF)
• USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Rare Earths (PDF)
• USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025: Gallium (PDF)
• MOFCOM Announcement No. 46 of 2024 on dual use exports to the United States (Chinese)
• MOFCOM Announcement No. 72 of 2025 suspending clause 2 of Announcement No. 46 (Chinese)
• Hong Kong Trade and Industry Department circular reproducing MOFCOM Announcement No. 46 of 2024 (PDF)
• Hong Kong Trade and Industry Department circular reproducing MOFCOM Announcement No. 72 of 2025 (PDF)
• Federal Register: 2022 Final List of Critical Minerals (govinfo)
• Federal Register: Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals (govinfo)
• Federal Register: BIS interim final rule implementing 2021 Wassenaar decisions on four Section 1758 technologies (govinfo)
• Regulation (EU) 2024/1252, the Critical Raw Materials Act (EUR-Lex)
• European Commission: Critical Raw Materials Act overview
• The White House: Fact Sheet on the economic and trade deal with China, 1 November 2025
• BIS: Export Administration Regulations

Last reviewed: 25 October 2026. MOFCOM's suspension of the U.S. specific clause runs until 27 November 2026; check mofcom.gov.cn and the other linked authorities for later changes.