Northeast Securities: Diamond Thermal Dissipation Material Revolution, Domestic Manufacturers Accelerate Breakthrough
The Zhitong Finance App learned that Northeast Securities released a research report saying that diamond is known by the industry as the “ultimate semiconductor material” and has become a key material to solve the cooling bottleneck of high-end chips. Diamond copper composites are being industrialized the fastest. The thermal conductivity can reach 800 W/m·k, and large-scale applications have been achieved. The implementation of industrialization still faces three core barriers to heavy production: cost and yield constraints, interface thermal resistance optimization problems, and insufficient mass production delivery capacity. Local manufacturers have relied on the industrial base to break through at an accelerated pace, and the layout of domestic enterprises is progressing in various ways.
The main views of Northeast Securities are as follows:
Chip power density has risen dramatically, and diamond has become the next generation core heat dissipation material due to its excellent thermophysical properties
Driven by advanced packaging and 3D integration technology, the total power consumption of high-end chips may be close to 2000W, making it difficult for traditional heat dissipation materials such as copper and aluminum to meet cooling requirements. Diamond's thermal conductivity is as high as 2000-2200W/m·k, which is 5 times that of copper, and has excellent electrical insulation, extremely low coefficient of thermal expansion, and chemical stability. It is known in the industry as the “ultimate semiconductor material”, and has become a key material for solving the heat dissipation bottleneck of high-end chips.
The three technology routes are being developed in parallel, and the degree of industrialization maturity presents a differentiated pattern
Single crystal diamond has the highest heat dissipation performance limit (thermal conductivity exceeds 2000W/m·k), but large-scale mass production is blocked, and it is too early for large-scale use in the industrial field; polycrystalline diamond is expected to mature in 1-3 years, with a thermal conductivity of about 1500 W/m·K. The core difficulties are large size growth uniformity and precision processing yield; diamond copper composites are industrialized the fastest, and the thermal conductivity can reach 800 W/m·K. Large-scale application has been achieved - first large-scale adoption at the Zhengzhou Supercomputing Center in April 2026.
Cultivating the diamond circuit ushered in transformation, and AI computing power cooling opened up the industry's second growth curve
Previously, the price of a 1-carat finished diamond fell from nearly 30,000 yuan in 2021 to only 5,000 to 6,000 yuan at the end of 2024, with a cumulative drop of more than 80%. Affected by US chip technology restrictions and increased demand for computing power in China, cultured diamonds, which originally focused on jewelry, were officially transformed into core functional materials for computing power cooling. The industrialization of diamond cooling still faces three core barriers to heavy production: cost and yield constraints, interface thermal resistance optimization problems, and insufficient mass production and delivery capacity.
Huawei's “Tao Law” drives 3D stack chip cooling iterations, and international giants accelerate layout
Huawei innovatively proposed the “Tao Law” (Tau Law) to upgrade chip performance through 3D heterogeneous integration technology, promote the application of 3D stacking technology, and place extreme requirements for heat dissipation. Nvidia announced that the next-generation Vera Rubin architecture GPUs will use the “Diamond Copper Composite Cooling Module+Direct Liquid Cooling System” solution to meet the extreme thermal design power consumption of 2,300 W; Intel invests in Diamond Foundry to lay out synthetic diamond wafers; and TSMC has completed the verification of single-crystal diamond cooling materials to clarify the requirements for 12-inch products. International giants Element Six, Orbray and others have mastered 3-inch wafer-grade single-crystal diamond production technology, and Chinese companies are facing competitive pressure.
Local manufacturers rely on the industrial base to accelerate breakthroughs, and the layout of domestic enterprises is progressing in various ways
China accounts for 95% of the world's synthetic diamond production, and Henan forms the world's largest diamond industry cluster. Sifangda Diamond Heatsinks have passed customer testing and entered the small-batch supply stage. The subsidiary Tianxuan Semiconductor achieved revenue of 62.89 million yuan in 2025; Wald successfully developed 12-inch diamond cooling wafers, and various products are promoting customer verification; China Machinery Precision Engineering has taken the lead in small-batch military orders; and the Yellow River Cyclone is seeking transformation breakthroughs through strategic layout of heat sinks.
Risk warning: Demand for data center construction falls short of expectations, and industry competition intensifies.