A new report says that suppliers delivering rare-earth materials to semiconductor manufacturers are facing limited supply, despite the U.S. and China agreeing to a truce on the escalating trade war between the two nations in October 2025. According to Reuters, U.S. firms are having trouble securing export licenses from China for scandium, which is essential for making 5G chips found on smartphones and cellular base stations. Although most of this particular material is sourced through third-party suppliers, Beijing requires exporters to declare their end-users to acquire a license. In fact, it’s not just scandium that’s affected by this requirement, but nearly every Chinese-origin rare earth that can be used to manufacture logic chips at 14nm or smaller or memory chips with 256 layers or more.
