Does All Semiconductor Manufacturing Depend on Spruce Pine Quartz? (2024)
4 days ago
- #manufacturing
- #quartz
- #semiconductors
- Spruce Pine, North Carolina, is a key source of high-purity quartz used in semiconductor and solar PV manufacturing.
- The quartz is essential for making crucibles that hold molten silicon during the production of silicon ingots.
- Spruce Pine quartz is highly pure and amenable to further purification, making it ideal for semiconductor manufacturing.
- Damage to Spruce Pine mines could disrupt supply, but alternatives exist, though they are more expensive or less efficient.
- Synthetic quartz and refining lower-purity quartz are potential alternatives, but they come with higher costs.
- Researchers are exploring alternative crucible materials like silicon nitride and silicon carbide to overcome quartz limitations.
- The Float Zone process can produce high-purity silicon without crucibles but is more expensive and limited in scale.
- Spruce Pine is not irreplaceable, but its quartz offers a unique combination of purity, availability, and price.
- The quartz crucible is a major cost factor in silicon ingot manufacturing, accounting for about 30% of production costs.
- Spruce Pine's quartz supply is estimated at 180–200,000 tons annually, with reserves expected to last decades.