Yuanji Microelectronics (formerly Jiwei Technology) officially commissioned China’s first eight-inch two-dimensional semiconductor engineering demonstration process line in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area, marking a decisive transition of advanced chip materials from academic research to industrial production. The fully operational pilot facility houses integrated lithography and etching systems currently undergoing continuous stability debugging, establishing a complete engineering chain that spans from material preparation to chip integration. This milestone confirms that China’s two-dimensional semiconductor technology has successfully moved beyond the laboratory phase and entered rigorous engineering verification and small-batch tape-out stages, laying the groundwork for standardized industrial design.
Two-dimensional semiconductors are increasingly viewed as a viable pathway beyond Moore’s Law, particularly as conventional silicon manufacturing approaches its physical limits around the two-nanometer node. Atomically flat materials such as molybdenum disulfide and tungsten diselenide provide superior gate control at short-channel scales and significantly simplify fabrication by eliminating complex three-dimensional nanoscale steps. Building on this advantage,
Yuanji Microelectronics announced that it will utilize the newly commissioned eight-inch platform in the second half of 2026 to develop a process path equivalent to the silicon-based ninety-nanometer node. Alongside this roadmap, the company launched its foundry tape-out services and released version 0.1 of a five-hundred-nanometer Process Design Kit (PDK). Fully compatible with mainstream EDA toolchains and achieving a yield exceeding 99.99 percent, this PDK breaks international performance records for two-dimensional semiconductors and will support circuit designs scaling to hundreds of thousands of transistors.
The company’s strategic vision targets a broad spectrum of commercial applications across memory, analog, logic, and next-generation computing fields.
Leveraging the ultra-low leakage current characteristics of 2D materials, Yuanji plans to initially deploy its technology in edge-side and high-compute DRAM architectures, where reduced refresh power consumption offers significant efficiency gains. Beyond memory, the platform holds strong potential for radio-frequency analog circuits, radiation-hardened communications, brain-computer interfaces, optoelectronic sensing, and quantum computing. To accelerate industry adoption, Yuanji will also advance heterogeneous integration by bonding two-dimensional semiconductors with traditional silicon chips using advanced packaging techniques, gradually building a design and manufacturing ecosystem for two-and-a-half-dimensional and quasi-three-dimensional integrated circuits.
This industrial breakthrough is strongly supported by Shanghai’s strategic initiative to establish a globally competitive hub for atomic-level chip manufacturing. Municipal authorities have prioritized two-dimensional semiconductors as a key future growth industry, focusing on wafer-level material R&D, collaborative innovation platforms, and full-chain ecosystem development that bridges research, pilot production, and mass manufacturing.
The project has attracted substantial capital, beginning with a one-hundred-million-renminbi angel round in December 2025 and followed by investments from Saiwei Electronics, Huakong Fund, Pudong Fund, and Guokai Kechuang. Strategic partnerships have also been formalized with leading academic institutions, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Nanjing University, to open university-led foundry services. Additionally, industry agreements with Xi’an Pioneer Institute and Shanghai 2D Star Technology will enable process platform sharing, technology transfer, and joint ecosystem development.
The rapid progression of the pilot line from initial activation earlier this year to full operational status—demonstrates a highly effective model of collaborative innovation among government agencies, universities, venture capital, and semiconductor enterprises. With sustained support in funding, equipment optimization, and supply chain integration, Yuanji Microelectronics is positioned to guide two-dimensional semiconductors from engineering validation toward high-yield manufacturing. As the industry shifts from prototype development to standardized industrial design, Shanghai’s emerging cluster is well underway to become a central driver in shaping the global landscape of post-silicon semiconductor technology.
