Devastation from Hurricane Helene could bring semiconductor chipmaking to a halt
- by CNN
- Oct 02, 2024
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A rare ingredient for a critical industry
Quartz is an essential ingredient in the semiconductor manufacturing process. And its purity is crucial to avoid damaging the chips.
âYouâre building these incredibly complicated chips that have, in some cases, 100 billion transistors, 100 billion tiny little machines, on a chip that is the size of your thumbnail ⦠One atom being out of place could mean a defect that breaks the chip,â said Gregory Allen, director of the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
And while quartz is abundant around the world, the kind of ultra-high-purity quartz mined in Spruce Pine is not. The Spruce Pine mines provide an estimated 80% to 90% of the worldâs high-purity quartz â experts say the exact amount is proprietary and unknown â supplying semiconductor manufacturers like chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
Some chip manufacturers may have up to several weeksâ supply of high-purity quartz to be able to continue production, but a longer shutdown at the mines will likely mean chip shortages. In some cases, purifying regular quartz can be used as an alternative, but the world doesnât have the capacity to do that purification in high enough quantities to make up for the loss of Spruce Pine.
âI would expect there to be a pause and a disruption in the supply chain for major chip manufacturers ⦠as they wait for these mines to reopen,â said David Bader, professor and director of the Institute for Data Science at New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Whatâs more, even if the mines themselves are able to reopen, they will need local infrastructure, like roads, to get the product out to customers.
A chip shortage would cause many industries to grind to a halt. The 2021 global chip shortage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic meant, for example, that car manufacturers were building nearly complete cars but couldnât ship them because they lacked chips to power critical features, driving up car prices.
âMost of the American economy, to some greater or lesser extent, is downstream from the semiconductor industry as a critical input,â CSISâs Allen said.
However, Wang said that despite the scale of the devastation in Spruce Pine, there is still reason for optimism.
âThis mine is considered a national strategic asset, and I would imagine that the federal government is going to move hell and high water to get it up and running as fast as possible ⦠everyone knows this mining complex is important,â Wang said.
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