16 June 2026

Zirconium up 15%: hafnium, the metal hiding inside advanced chips

Key insights from this briefing

Why can hafnium prices diverge sharply between regions?

Hafnium is a thin, relatively opaque market with limited recovered supply and few transparent benchmarks. Because it is produced as a by-product of zirconium purification, regional availability depends on specialised processing capacity and trade access. Those constraints can leave European and Asia-Pacific buyers facing very different physical-market conditions at the same time.

Why is hafnium strategically important for advanced semiconductors?

Hafnium oxide is used as a high-k gate dielectric in advanced semiconductor devices, where it enables continued transistor scaling while limiting leakage current. Because hafnium is a by-product with limited independent supply response, semiconductor demand can create a structurally tight market.

Excerpt from this briefing's Industry Insight

Zirconium rose almost 15% month on month to US$28/kg as Chinese export licensing tightened supply to non-Chinese buyers, putting its by-product, hafnium, in focus. Hafnium is separated from zirconium during specialised refining, and only a small fraction of the hafnium in processed zircon is recovered. Supply follows zirconium and nuclear-fuel-cycle economics, while demand comes from hafnium oxide in advanced semiconductor gate dielectrics, as well as aerospace and defence. Thin physical markets and by-product supply help explain why regional hafnium prices can diverge sharply.

This is an excerpt from the Industry Insight in the full Market Briefing. Log in to access the complete briefing.