Establishing High-Level R&D Platforms, Yunnan Tin Group Regains New Advantages in the Global Tin and Indium Sectors

Under the lens, a BGA solder ball used for chip packaging, when magnified tens of thousands of times, reveals a magnificent sight resembling cosmic planets. Researchers from the Yunnan Tin and Indium Laboratory are using a scanning electron microscope to introduce this fascinating phenomenon to visitors.

This solder ball, with a diameter of only 0.3 millimeters, shoulders the responsibility of ensuring the stable operation of 5G base stations and AI chips worldwide, and also reflects the determination of Yunnan Tin Group (Holding) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yunnan Tin") to reshape the global tin and indium industry landscape through technological innovation.

Currently, a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is advancing rapidly, and global competition in science and technology is becoming increasingly fierce. As a crucial entity in the innovation system and a key component of strategic scientific and technological forces, laboratories shoulder critical missions such as attracting and nurturing high-quality talents, advancing basic research, producing cutting-edge achievements, and driving industrial development. In recent years, Yunnan Tin has collaborated closely with universities to establish a platform for technological innovation, integrate innovative resources, and position the Yunnan Tin and Indium Laboratory as the cradle of technological innovation in China's tin and indium industry.

Based on the in-depth implementation of the national innovation-driven development strategy and the demand for industrial transformation and upgrading in Yunnan Province, the Yunnan Tin and Indium Laboratory was approved for construction by the Yunnan Provincial Science and Technology Leading Group. It was inaugurated and commenced operations on August 22, 2024, becoming a laboratory dedicated to multidisciplinary comprehensive research and development across the entire industry chain of tin and indium.

Led by Yunnan Tin and jointly constructed with Kunming University of Science and Technology, Yunnan University, and Shanghai University, this laboratory has been positioned as the highest-level laboratory representing the tin and indium industry from its inception.

Sun Yong, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Yunnan Tin, stated that as a leading enterprise in the global tin and indium sector and a century-old state-owned enterprise, Yunnan Tin has always placed technological innovation at a strategic height. The construction of the Yunnan Tin and Indium Laboratory aims to create an innovation hub with core competitiveness and become an important support for the national strategic scientific and technological forces in the tin and indium industry.

Henceforth, "building a national technological innovation hub and an original technology cradle for the tin and indium industry, and supporting Yunnan Tin to become a world-class demonstration enterprise" has become the development goal of the Yunnan Tin and Indium Laboratory.

Yunnan Tin has a first-mover advantage in establishing the Yunnan Tin and Indium Laboratory. Yunnan Tin is the birthplace of China's tin industry, ranking first globally in tin and indium resource reserves. Yunnan Province has formed a complete industry chain integrating exploration, mining, beneficiation, smelting, deep processing, and trade. While leveraging its resource advantages in tin and indium, it has gradually established a relatively complete technological research and development system for the tin and indium industry. This not only safeguards the strategic security of the country's tin and indium resources from the perspective of in-depth development and efficient utilization of tin and indium resources, enriches the national strategic scientific and technological forces in the tin and indium field, but also serves as an important measure to promote the optimization and upgrading of the traditional non-ferrous metal industry.

Amid the intensifying global semiconductor competition, tin, hailed as the "computing power metal," and indium, known as the "transparent metal," have become foundational materials for the digital economy. Beyond traditional applications, tin and indium products are widely used in semiconductor chips, 5G communications, new energy, national defense, and military industries, among other fields. With the vigorous development of China's digital economy, the tin and indium industry has vast growth potential.

"It must be built, it must be ours, and we are very much looking forward to it," said Peng Jubo, Chairman of the Yunnan Tin and Indium Laboratory, promoting the laboratory's development. He stated that tin and indium, as strategic and scarce resources, are ubiquitous and irreplaceable.

It is understood that Yunnan Province's tin and indium industry has evident "strengths and weaknesses," and enhancing the core innovation capability of the industry is imperative. In terms of industry "strengths," multiple technologies at the front end of the mining, beneficiation, and smelting industry chain are leading both domestically and globally. However, in terms of industry "weaknesses," high-value-added products in the new materials sector face issues such as low production, weak market competitiveness, and low profitability. Among these, high-end solder and flux, as well as high-purity materials for semiconductors, are largely dependent on imports, making it difficult to ensure the security of the national strategic tin and indium resource supply chain.

Meanwhile, the supply chain for high-end tin and indium new materials is rapidly shifting from external to internal, presenting a strategic development window. However, existing innovation platforms are not enough to support and lead the innovative development of the tin and indium industry. Establishing the Yunnan Tin and Indium Laboratory can not only leverage the "strengths" to further develop advanced exploration, mining, beneficiation, and smelting technologies and equipment, consolidating and maintaining global competitiveness, but also address the "weaknesses" by enhancing the independent innovation capability of tin and indium new materials, achieving collaborative innovation across the entire industry chain, and accelerating breakthroughs in high-value-added tin and indium "bottleneck" technologies, thereby significantly improving the resilience and security of the tin and indium industry chain and supply chain. "This will help accelerate the creation of a 100-billion-yuan 'world-class demonstration enterprise,' enhancing the international competitiveness and influence of China's tin and indium industry," said Peng Jubo.

The Yunnan Tin and Indium Laboratory will focus on technological innovation, industrial innovation, development model innovation, institutional mechanism innovation, and talent mechanism innovation. It will conduct technical research across the entire tin and indium industry chain, build a comprehensive R&D system, and break through key "bottleneck" technologies such as high-end solder and flux, ITO targets, and high-purity materials for semiconductors.

Only through the deep integration of technological innovation and industrial innovation can the leap from "exporting raw materials" to "exporting solutions" be achieved. So, what is driving the transformation of Yunnan Tin?

In the process of promoting the upgrading of traditional industries and the cultivation of emerging industries, AI technology is comprehensively penetrating from scientific research into commercial applications, becoming an important engine driving industrial transformation. "We are closely following this trend, deeply integrating AI technology with the tin-indium industry, and exploring new models of intelligent R&D and production," said a relevant person in charge of the Yunnan Tin-Indium Laboratory.

Scientific research is undergoing a profound transformation, shifting from an empirical paradigm to a big data-driven paradigm. Yunnan Tin is undergoing a significant shift in its R&D model.

Relying on the fifth paradigm of "intelligent computing + autonomous experimentation + big data," the Yunnan Tin-Indium Laboratory will take AI technology as its core driving force to fully promote the intelligent upgrading of the entire tin-indium industry chain, aiming to create an interdisciplinary, life cycle-covering intelligent development platform. This move will not only inject innovative vitality into Yunnan Tin but also bring unprecedented innovative momentum to the global tin-indium industry.

China's non-ferrous metals industry is currently at a critical stage of enhancing its scale advantages, continuous structural adjustments, increased innovation capabilities, and green and intelligent manufacturing. Actively cultivating and developing new quality productive forces will further accelerate the transformation of the non-ferrous metals industry towards high-end, green, and intelligent development, bringing valuable opportunities for the industry's growth. This also requires more innovative achievements to move out of the laboratory and integrate into the industry chain.

Currently, Yunnan Tin has established its position as a leading industry in both tin and indium, leveraging its abundant tin-indium resource reserves. Since 2005, Yunnan Tin has consistently ranked first globally in tin production and sales. In 2024, it held a 48% market share in the domestic tin metal market and a 25% global market share, possessing the entire industry chain for tin metal exploration, mining, beneficiation, smelting, and deep processing.

"Overall, the tin-indium industry chain is long, involving multiple professional fields. Currently, the new materials sector is relatively weak. For example, the formulation technology for some tin alloy solders is still protected by foreign patents. However, we have made breakthroughs in this area, developing solder alloy formulations based on independent intellectual property rights, achieving import substitution," said Peng Jubo. The laboratory will promote the integration of the industry chain with the innovation chain, driving the construction of a sustainable development system where "science and technology incubate industries, and industries nurture science and technology." In the future, it will further establish an industry-sharing platform and continuously build an open innovation ecosystem.

Through construction over the next 5 to 10 years, Yunnan Tin Group will establish a high-level domestic scientific and technological innovation hub characterized by breakthrough leadership, interdisciplinary integration, and comprehensive synthesis. The innovative development of the Yunnan Tin-Indium Laboratory will serve as a microcosm of China's traditional industries climbing to the top of the global value chain.When people observe tin-indium materials with an electron microscope, they see not only a landscape resembling the ravines on the moon, but also the trajectory of a nation's industrial struggle to scale the peak of global scientific and technological advancement.