The world's semiconductor industry hinges on a single quartz factory in North Carolina
www.tomshardware.com
The deposits formed 380 million years ago when Africa collided with North America.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/rescue-crews-rush-to-north-carolina-mountain-towns-cut-off-by-helene-floodwaters

yea

Quick google search shows that China has its own Quartz mines, so I'm not sure if those are unsuitable for certain semiconductors or if the use of "world" here just means international-community-1

  • mbt2402 [none/use name]
    ·
    2 months ago

    here's some background information and speculation, as someone not involved in the industy. the silicon wafers used for making chips are big single crystals, which are made by the Czochralski method

    Show
    the crucible is also made of silica and needs to be very perfect, so that no crystals are seeded from the walls, so it makes sense to me that the crucible needs to be at least the purity of the desired silicon wafers - which is at least 99.9999% pure and for research-grade samples 99.99999999% pure. I suspect that the leading-edge nodes requires the high-end of this scale. Its economical to start with the highest purity material that you can, which according to Conway's Material World comes from spruce pine, but its possible to use a lower grade starting material.

    • Hexboare [they/them]
      ·
      2 months ago

      High purity quartz has been identified as a strategic resource so a number of countries have started exploring sites or subsiding this sort of quartz mining - Russia, China, Australia and a few others