Headline is a bit clickbaity. The article is too, but the headline is worse. This factory is the only one processing the local quartz deposits, which are the purest known in the world (at least to hear the article say it), to the degree that they do, and the resulting quartz is necessary to make crucibles for chip fabrication, among other things. The mining and/or industrial processes needed to replace either would be extremely expensive and take several years to ramp up, but the result would be “only” a price spike, new product delays, and a general logistics clusterfuck, not the end of the industry. Some of the article’s commenters suggest that it’s partially due to the ready availability and relatively low price of quartz from the factory that several other slightly less desirable facilities and mines shut down or scaled back. So, it’s all a bit breathless, but it does look like a significant, perhaps troubling, industrial bottleneck.
I used to work for a foreign company in the US that made this stuff. All the crucibles were made out of graphite, never saw a quartz crucible, maybe they are used in the making of them via ingredient or mold, or maybe they produce a different quality of silicon. We “grew” the silicon into these big (ranging from 2-4ish ft long) cylinder like crystals where they would be shipped off to another area to be sliced into thin wafers for chips. The crucibles were good for maybe I think under 100 runs before they needed to be replaced if they didn’t fail before that.
Seems that quartz is involved in a “Czochralski” method crucible. I dunno. I figured I dun gud just to read the article, LOL.
LOL one more of these guys who think the world inside Usa’s borders is the bigger part, and the outside part is negligible.
So you have some other secret high purity quartz mining facility (of the same quality, mind you, and that’s important because none of the other known facilities on Earth have the same quality) outside of the USA that we all can use?
Snide comment aside, I love how you can be so reductionist to reduce this to “egotistical american bad” without understanding the global implications. You’re honestly no smarter than the average American. Tell me you don’t understand the process and nuances of creating semiconductors without telling me…
Gaat het in uw bolleke?
Here’s the actual top 10 over exporting countries of quartz. Not even in the top 5 for the US.
1 China $72,289,000
2 Turkey $68,161,000
3 India $43,827,000
4 Spain $27,107,000
5 Brazil $26,611,000
6 United States $21,351,000
7 Germany $16,791,000
8 Italy $13,219,000
9 Canada $12,225,000
10 Egypt $10,204,000
The article’s implication is that not all quartz is the same quality. Are you saying that’s incorrect? This list seems irrelevant otherwise.
The article is correct. High purity quartz is necessary for semiconductors, not all quartz meets this standard.
