An email from Europe set the procurement manager of a South China EV adhesive company on edge: Dow and Wacker simultaneously raised electronic-grade silicone prices by 15%, and standard lead times are now extended beyond June 2026. Similar notices are being sent intensively to domestic high-end manufacturers in electronics, medical, and photovoltaics—international giants, under pressure from production allocation and geopolitical logistics, are passing supply pressures downstream.
“It’s not that we don’t want to use imported materials, we just can’t wait,” the procurement manager admitted. With AI chip encapsulation lines losing over a million yuan per day of downtime, more companies are seriously reconsidering a previously avoided question: Can domestic high-end silicone really step up?
The answer is quietly changing. Over the past two years, several domestic manufacturers have achieved substantial breakthroughs in key metrics:
Viscosity stability: Through GPC online monitoring and narrow-distribution polymerization, leading companies have controlled batch deviations of 1000 cSt phenyl silicone oil within ±3%, comparable to Wacker’s AK series.
Metal ion content: ICP-MS tests show multiple domestic electronic-grade silicones have Na+K <0.8 ppm and Fe <0.2 ppm, meeting JEDEC J-STD-001 standards for electronic materials.
Batch consistency: Companies like Hesheng and Xin’an have established dedicated high-purity production lines, providing GC-MS reports, viscosity-temperature curves, and D4/D5 residual reports for every batch, achieving “data transparency.”
Even more crucial is delivery capability. When imported materials have a six-month lead time, domestic suppliers can generally deliver small verification samples in 7–15 days and provide stable supply within 30 days. “We just replaced a phenyl silicone oil used for IGBT thermal gels; performance is identical, and costs dropped 22%,” said a R&D director from an East China adhesive company.
Of course, not all domestic materials meet standards. Industry experts suggest focusing on three signals:
Dedicated electronic/medical-grade production lines (not switched from general-purpose lines);
Ability to provide full third-party test reports (not just factory certificates);
Certification under IATF 16944 or ISO 13485.
“Trust isn’t built on slogans; it’s built on batch after batch of reliable supply,” said a domestic silicone technical lead.
As international supply chains become less “reliable,” domestic alternatives are moving from “backup” to “must-have.” This time, Chinese silicone manufacturers are ready—not with low prices, but with molecular-level reliability truly matched to high-end manufacturing demands.
