"Helene shuts down Spruce Pine, NC mine" - "quartz facility integral to global production of .. semiconductor chips"

[Xebec]

A buddy sent me this article: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article293265924.html

"
The town is home to the purest quartz on the planet, a byproduct of continental formations that occurred more than 380 million years ago. High-purity quartz is essential to making the silicon wafers that get cut into chips. While there are other sources of quartz, the purity many producers demand is only found around the mines of Spruce Pine."

“It is rare, unheard of almost, for a single site to control the global supply of a crucial material,” wrote Ed Conway in his 2023 book “Material World.” “Yet if you want to get high-purity quartz — the kind you need to make those crucibles without which you can’t make silicon wafers — it has to come from Spruce Pine.”

More recently, a second company named The Quartz Corp has invested in mines around Spruce Pine. On Tuesday, the company announced it too had stopped operations on Sept. 26, adding “we have no visibility on when they will restart.”


.. Is the title/article a little alarmist or is this potentially a bigger impact for the semi industry?

Thanks!

 

[KevinK]

Seems like good, though alarmist catch of a real industry vulnerability. But a poor assessment of options and alternatives if this thread is to believed.

The semiconductor industry hinges on a quartz factory in North Carolina | Hacker News

news.ycombinator.com

 

[Daniel Nenni]

We heard a similar thing when Russia attacked Ukraine and with the political wrangling with China. The bottom line is that these materials are available elsewhere but may be more expensive to extract and process. Similar with prices and sources of oil. It goes to the point that it is important that the US be as self sufficient as possible with oil, semiconductors, materials, food, etc... because you never know what will happen when cooler heads do not prevail. Which is usually the case. I just read that Iran directly attacked Israel today. No cooler heads there.

 

[Xebec]

We heard a similar thing when Russia attacked Ukraine and with the political wrangling with China. The bottom line is that these materials are available elsewhere but may be more expensive to extract and process. Similar with prices and sources of oil. It goes to the point that it is important that the US be as self sufficient as possible with oil, semiconductors, materials, food, etc... because you never know what will happen when cooler heads do not prevail. Which is usually the case. I just read that Iran directly attacked Israel today. No cooler heads there.

Thanks! I had a feeling this was one of those - it’s a critical resource, but there are other sources in production scenarios.

In addition to Iran launching 100-300 missiles at Israel, Israel also sent it’s troops over the border into Lebanon today.. one source saying as many as 70,000-100,000 troops involved.. For all of the talk of TSMC in Taiwan, Intel is pretty dependent upon Israel safety..

 

[Paul2]

because you never know what will happen when cooler heads do not prevail.

The critical point there is that we associate cooleadedness with peace, which is wrong. Most successful military attacks are calculated, and well planned.

A weaker opponent most likely to attack a stronger one when the stronger opponent will not respond. To do so, a weaker opponent needs to know when, and why he will not respond.

The more you make yourself predictable by limiting yourself to coolheaded decisions, the more the enemy knows what you will not do. The more he knows what you will not do, the more he will do.

 

[DepthFirst]

Thanks! I had a feeling this was one of those - it’s a critical resource, but there are other sources in production scenarios.

In addition to Iran launching 100-300 missiles at Israel, Israel also sent it’s troops over the border into Lebanon today.. one source saying as many as 70,000-100,000 troops involved.. For all of the talk of TSMC in Taiwan, Intel is pretty dependent upon Israel safety..

If Israel were to disappear tomorrow Intel would be disrupted but still exist. The same is not true for TSMC and Taiwan. Considering the relative strength of Israel vs its foes compared to Taiwan vs its foes TSMC is significantly more risky.

 

[Barnsley]

This nonsense all over my Linkedin as well.

 

[jms_embedded]

.. Is the title/article a little alarmist or is this potentially a bigger impact for the semi industry?

On a technical side, can anyone comment on the crucible requirements? Why do crucibles require higher-purity quartz than the wafers? How do they get made in the first place from raw quartz? Is it not possible to raise purity during manufacturing (my understanding is that Si wafers come from much more common sources of industrial sand) and be less dependent on high-purity quartz from places like Spruce Pine and Norway and China?

Top 3 high purity quartz manufacturers in the world - MAXTON

High-purity quartz is the raw material for high-grade quartz products and forms the material foundat

maxtonco.com

 

[jms_embedded]

Thanks! I had a feeling this was one of those - it’s a critical resource, but there are other sources in production scenarios.

I'm not sure of this. Presumably there's a reason beyond "economic convenience"; I don't know Sibelco's and The Quartz Corp's (TQC) market shares but it seems unusual to have a single source for a key product.

Explore the wide range of benefits Sibelco IOTA high purity quartz (HPQ) brings to semiconductors, photovoltaic cells, optical fiber, and quartz lighting.

Explore the wide range of benefits Sibelco IOTA high purity quartz (HPQ) brings to semiconductors, photovoltaic cells, optical fiber, and quartz lighting.

www.sibelco.com

High Purity Quartz | The Quartz Corp

Our mission is to provide the industries of tomorrow an ultra-pure raw material, directly supporting the creation of renewable energy and innovative technologies.

www.thequartzcorp.com

update:

Update on Hurricane Helene impact on The Quartz Corp | The Quartz Corp

Our mission is to provide the industries of tomorrow an ultra-pure raw material, directly supporting the creation of renewable energy and innovative technologies.

www.thequartzcorp.com

We have been able to conduct the first visual inspections of our plants and it would appear that damage is mostly concentrated around ancillary units. It is still too early to assess when TQC will resume operations as this will also depend on the rebuilding of local infrastructure.

However, we remain confident of our ability to avoid any supply disruption for our High Purity Quartz customers. We operate a long supply chain and like many organisations we added more focus on our resilience planning post-Covid.

As a result, we have established strong levels of feed stock in Norway to supply our purification operations. Coupled with safety stocks of finished products and those that exist at different levels throughout the supply chain, we do not anticipate any critical situation for our downstream industries in the short or medium term.

 

[jms_embedded]

South China Morning Post has some non-fearmongering & informative updates:

TSMC, Samsung, other chip makers monitor quartz supply after hurricane shut mines

Hurricane Helene halted production at two US mines that produce most of the world’s supply of high-purity quartz, a material critical to making semiconductors.

www.scmp.com

------

Global semiconductor manufacturers are monitoring supplies of high-purity quartz, a material critical to the industry, after Hurricane Helene halted production at two North Carolina mines that produce most of the world’s supply.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) – the world’s largest contract chip maker – and Germany’s Infineon Technologies said in statements they were keeping tabs on the situation, but did not anticipate any significant impact to their operations.
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix said they also do not expect repercussions. TSMC supplier Topco Scientific Co, which processes quartz, said it is reviewing its inventory and is in close touch with all suppliers.

The impact on the global chip-making sector remains unclear, given semiconductor firms are adept at stockpiling essential components and the operations in North Carolina are expected to eventually resume.

Taiwan’s GlobalWafers, one of the world’s biggest suppliers of silicon to the likes of TSMC, on Thursday became the latest to play down immediate supply concerns.

“Our crucible suppliers have sufficient inventory to meet our needs,” GlobalWafers said in a statement. “The supply chain is resilient enough to manage a temporary disruption in upstream material. Adequate inventories are maintained throughout, and we do not anticipate any impact on our ability to fulfil committed orders.”

North Carolina quartz miners Sibelco and Quartz Corp both suspended operations on September 26 and said it was too early to say when production will resume.

Helene severely hit their community, which is struggling with flooding and power and communication outages. At least 166 people died across six states from the storm.

The affected mines are near Spruce Pine – a small town an hour north of Asheville, North Carolina – that is one of the most important global suppliers of quartz. The two operations account for more than 80 per cent of the world’s supply of commercial high-purity quartz, BloombergNEF said in a report last year.

About 20,000 tons a year of extremely high-purity quartz are produced at Spruce Pine, BNEF solar analyst Jenny Chase said in a note on Tuesday. The mineral is important to both the solar and semiconductor industries, because it is used to make the inner layer in crucibles, she said, adding that a prolonged disruption in supply could accelerate the adoption of synthetic alternatives.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

If Israel were to disappear tomorrow Intel would be disrupted but still exist. The same is not true for TSMC and Taiwan. Considering the relative strength of Israel vs its foes compared to Taiwan vs its foes TSMC is significantly more risky.

The same can be said with North Korea versus South Korea with the exception that North Korea seems less stable than China. If you take South Korea out of the semiconductor equation then 70% of the DRAM and 50% of NAND capacity disappears so the China vs Taiwan issue becomes less pressing.