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a small american town actually controls the lifeblood of global chips?

a sudden natural disaster exposed a little-known vulnerability in the semiconductor supply chain. hurricane helene caused flooding in north carolina, causing production to cease at an ultra-pure quartz mine in the spruce pine mountains.

spruce pine is a small town in north carolina, united states. the town is famous for its rich mineral resources, especially the ultra-pure quartz it produces, which is important to the global semiconductor industry.

according to experts,the region supplies 90% of the world’s ultra-pure quartzthis quartz is a key raw material in chip manufacturing. it is used to make the crucibles used to produce the high-purity silicon used in semiconductors. the silicon ingots in these crucibles are cut into thin slices and used to print transistors and circuits to make chips. ,the foundation of the $600 billion semiconductor industry. the quartz used in these crucibles needs to be 99.999% pure to prevent it from reacting with the purer polysilicon at high temperatures.

the oslo-headquartered company describes spruce pine as "the only mine on earth with quartz pure enough to produce the crucibles needed to make semiconductor ingots。”

of ultra-pure quartz from the regionin the event of a long-term outageit may affect the downstream production of key components of electronic products such as smartphones, computers and solar panels.impact on global chip supply chain, especially today when the demand for ai servers is surging and the supply of high-end chips is tight.

although there are other sources of high purity quartz around the world,but spruce pine’s quartz is unparalleled in purity, quantity and availability.. vince beiser mentioned in his book "the world of a grain of sand" that although there are some small producers in countries such as russia, brazil, india and china, the supply of this key material is highly concentrated in a small town with a population of about 2,000 people. the town is "pretty crazy,"there is currently no real alternative。

but the good thing is that the impact of hurricane helene on the region is currently short-term.sibelco, the largest quartz mine operator in spruce pine, said earlier this week: "the hurricane caused widespread flooding, power outages, communications disruptions and damage to critical infrastructure in the region. the company said before the storm on september 26 operations have ceased." as of friday the company said it had made significant progress in its recovery efforts, with an initial assessment showing only minor damage to its operations in the spruce pine area and a detailed assessment underway.

the quartz corporation, another miner in spruce pine, also said that although it is too early to assess the time to resume production, it is confident that supply disruptions will be avoided.

semianalysis, a chip consulting firm, estimates that silicon wafer manufacturers such as globalwafers, siltronic and sumco will be the largest contributors to chip manufacturers such as intel, samsung and tsmc.3 to 8 months of inventory provided. analysts believe thatexisting inventories could buffer any disruption in the short term, and mining activity may restart before inventories are depleted. however, ed conway, author of "material world" believes that,it may take more time for operations to return to previous levels。

this incident highlights the fragility of the economic foundation of our lives, and that few people pay attention to a place like spruce pine until something big happens. as global demand for semiconductor chips continues to grow, ensuring the stability of the supply chain has become particularly important.