The resilience myth: fatal flaws in the push to secure chip supply chains
Source: https://www.ft.com/content/f76534bf-b501-4cbf-9a46-80be9feb670c
An interesting article. About chip making and fluoropolymers connection. Long article; snippet relevant to GFL thread pasted below.
“If you want a resilient chip supply chain, you not only need chip plants, you also need a whole string of suppliers from critical chemicals and precision components all coming along,”
TSMC is in the midst of a $100bn expansion. But the Taiwanese giant has found its own supply chains to be plagued by bottlenecks, affecting items that range from high precision lenses to apparently mundane valves and tubes made of special plastics called fluoropolymers.
Follow the supply chain upstream, and chokepoints emerge with regard to the fluoropolymers from which these components are made. One such material, known as PFA, is only supplied by Chemours of the US and Daikin Industries of Japan. It requires extensive knowhow to process, and no competitors are on the horizon.
Other key fluoropolymer material makers include Solvay of Belgium, 3M of the US, Gujarat Fluorochemicals of India and HaloPolymer of Russia. But not all of them are qualified to build semiconductor-grade materials and they must supply to a wide range of other industries beyond the tech sector. Sources from Russia have dropped away due to the disruption and sanctions caused by its war in Ukraine. Hsu Chun-yuan, chief business development officer of United Integrated Services, a leading cleanroom builder for
TSMC and rival chipmaker Micron Technology, told Nikkei that “sources of fluoropolymers are constrained” and there have been “demand hikes from both the chip and battery industries, driven by the electric vehicle boom”.
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