Top chip manufacturers in Taiwan and South Korea scrutinize their stocks at a critical juncture industrial gases due to the situation in Ukraine.
Η crisis in Ukraine creates additional problems in the production of Chips, as there are well-founded fears of supply disruption, which would exacerbate the global shortage of chips.
According to reliable sources, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and United Microelectronics Corp. spoke with key gas suppliers on Thursday to make sure supplies continued to be available.
Η TSMC and UMC regularly carry out risk assessments of all critical materials and ensure that they always have a supply of up to one year with the most important gases, such as neon and argon. The companies are also looking for alternative sources of such gases to ensure the continuity of production, according to the same sources.
Η TSMC supplies almost all of the world's top chip developers, including Apple, Google, Qualcomm and Nvidia, while UMC supplies the Samsung, Qualcomm and many others.
Η Ukraine and Russia are important sources of noble gases ( new, slow, foreign and cryptic) and precious metals (hexafluorobutadiene (C4F6) and palladium) used in the manufacture of chips. THE Ukraine, for example, controls the 70% of world supply neon, according to the research company TrendForce.
Neon is used in lithography, a critical step in the chip production process, while argon is used in engraving, another important step in making any type of chip, according to industry executives.
The Ukrainian crisis comes after a year of chip and component shortages, with companies also suffering from higher material costs and longer delivery times of equipment and materials due to component malfunctions, manpower shortages and logistics crashes caused or exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Some gas suppliers, such as Air Products and Linde from the USA and Air Liquide from France, buy inert gases, purify and liquefy them and then supply them to global chip manufacturers such as Intel, TSMC and Samsung, as well as to smaller players.
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