Indium Corporation is a specialty materials company critical to the entire value chain of advanced, in-demand sectors such as semiconductor and aerospace. Like its namesake metal, Indium Corporation aims to remain ductile, malleable, and cool under the heat and pressure of unforeseeable market weather.
How does Indium Corporation answer the growing demand for specialty thermal materials?
Indium Corporation is a 92-year-old global materials company serving all levels of the electronics, semiconductor and thermal management supply chain. We are one of the world’s largest solder paste producers and a global leader in indium metal, our namesake and element number 49, the materials source for many applications that need advanced thermal solutions.
Indium Corporation is a primary source for companies seeking advanced thermal solutions, both at the assembly and final production levels. We have established strong supply chains to acquire the required metals for alloy production, knowledgeable engineers who work directly with customers to develop custom solutions, and state-of-the-art equipment and automation in our worldwide factories to produce sophisticated thermal interface materials to maximize heat transfer, prevent overheating, and ensure device longevity. This is an essential requirement within today’s AI and advanced computing applications.
Which critical materials are you most excited about right now?
The U.S. Department of Energy is funding our proposal to establish a domestic gallium supply chain. Right now, most gallium comes from feedstock that starts with bauxite ore that yields aluminium. After the bauxite has been converted to aluminium oxide in an intermediary step, it is too late to capture the gallium. Rather than being recovered for electronics and other applications, it ends up as e-waste. We are developing the processing technology to capture it. Gallium may be a minor constituent in industrial processes, but it can create value if extracted economically. Germanium will likely be our next major focus. As market constraints have developed, germanium and gallium prices have become extraordinarily high, reinforcing the importance of building a more resilient supply chain. Our goal is to secure multiple sources of feedstock, both domestically and globally, to fully utilize our refining capabilities.
What strategic goals does the offtake partnership with Flash Metals USA fulfill?
We already reclaim indium, gallium, and germanium when available, but these have needed to be of relatively high quality. We need an upstream partner committed to transforming waste into the high-quality feedstock we need. With Flash Metals, we hope to recover vital elements that would otherwise be lost and bring them back into the supply chain. We are thrilled that they want to extract all the constituent elements, not just copper or gold, but potentially tin, antimony, germanium and indium. While this recovery process may never meet all the global needs of gallium because of growing demands and new applications, it is a critical part of our overall strategy for environmental sustainability, circular economy and supply chain security.
What is Indium Corporation’s approach to optimization and sustainability?
Our development of new materials typically changes the energy footprint of a customer’s application during assembly. To assemble a circuit board—the familiar green board with copper traces—we don’t place components on it with a little wire and solder. We print our Durafuse® LT solder paste across the whole board, place the components in the solder paste, and then run the board through an oven at about 220 to 245 degrees Celsius—a lower temperature than previously required. This reduces energy consumption, improves manufacturing yields, and minimizes warpage during assembly. Materials science changes the world—this is one example.
Our aerospace customers require highly reliable, cost-effective materials to assemble their satellites, launch systems, and communications infrastructure. Our Durafuse® HR product is a high-temperature solution that provides reliability and strength under ruggedized environments to withstand significant thermal cycling and solder joint stress. Its unique mixed powder captures the benefit of lower-temperature assembly of very high-temperature components to make a reliable solder joint that can withstand the physical stress of launches, space travel, and the power cycles of Earth.
Looking ahead, what is the trajectory of Indium Corporation’s global expansions?
We continuously develop new alloys and compositions, and have secured strong, multinational supply chains with multiple partners. We have major manufacturing operations in China and Malaysia, a refinery in South Korea and a growing presence in India. We are fortunate to have great engineers worldwide who really challenge us—fortifying our team with great talent around the world has been a game-changer. The rest comes down to trade and opportunities to scale. We are expanding rapidly to meet global demands with multiple factories, equipment, and automation, and our engineers work closely with customers and bring insights and ideas back to our R&D centers.
What is Indium Corporation’s forecast for the future of materials science?
Nobody knows exactly which technologies, architectures, or supply chains will win. As a materials company, we need to stay connected to all options as we push forward on multiple fronts. Our philosophy is simple: keep engineers working directly with customer engineers, develop viable products quickly, and iterate together. This will allow us to adapt as markets evolve.
We need talented people on this journey. Every AI system, server rack, and advanced electronic device depends on people who build, assemble and support physical products. We need to encourage more people to enter manufacturing—it builds careers, changes lives, strengthens economies, and helps drive innovation forward.
