Essential node in global semiconductor supply chain hit by Hurricane Helene | 196 points | 50 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41701862

> and 70% of the world's supply comes from just one place in North Carolina

A quick search seems to say there are more places available for getting that than North Carolina.

Is it possible that this specific mine just happens to be the cheapest available right now, but in case they for some reason disappear, there are alternatives everyone would switch to? Or is the situation that if that mine disappears, there is no other alternatives at all?

Could not even be the cheapest, Just the refinement process was developed for this particular sand. A different sand might have different impurities and need different processes to handle.

If the particular impurities of this source can be chelated out with safer or cheaper chemicals, maybe in fewer steps, then the cost goes down.

Of course jurisdictions with poor worker conditions can just use the less safe chemicals and externalize the human toll instead of using more complex safety procedures.

Almost all our modern tech has extremely long tails measured in decades.

It's basic economics to exploit one source for as long as possible before feasibility changes, but that's a hard argument to make for anyone, even the most experienced personnel because it's all so site specific.

>> and 70% of the world's supply comes from just one place in North Carolina

> A quick search seems to say there are more places available for getting that than North Carolina.

I mean, I deduced it straight from “70%”.

I'm pretty sure the implied argument is that, while this source currently supplies 70% of the total, we aren't actually dependent on it - i.e. production could be scaled up elsewhere.

Availability, production scale, and knowledge base.

I think things will probably pan out okay, maybe a rough month or two as roads (even if rough cut new logging roads), utilities, and prioritized community services get fixed up. Synthetic option is available, apparently, just a bit costly.

Yeah, this is being overblown. It may very well be that there will be a short term constriction as competitors ramp, but to argue that this is some kind of fundamental bottleneck in semiconductor production is ridiculous.

It's quartz: literally the single most common crystal on the surface of the planet. Now, sure, I'm sure this particular mine had great stuff, but it's not like it's hard to find.

No, surely what we have here is a single source provider precisely because the material is so cheap to mine (and therefore unprofitable to try to compete with from scratch).

You're right, but I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a bottleneck at least for a few months, generating a lot of headaches for some companies.

I wrote this comment on an article that was on HN about 6 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39818778

Sadly, given the insane amount of devastation in western NC, I'll get a chance to test my hypothesis. That is, despite Spruce Pine going offline, the overall impact to the global semiconductor industry will be relatively unnoticeable.

Could also go the other way. Some of you may be old enough to remember the 1993 fire in the Sumitomo epoxy resin factory. Following that, DRAM chips became drastically more expensive (prices increased from $30 to $80 per megabyte) for much longer than the supply disruptions lasted, and interestingly also much longer than other ICs which saw only moderate price increases.

Oh, cool. One of the most common glass batches (raw materials melted to make glass) used by artists is "Spruce Pine Batch".

Wonder if it’s the same stuff or if glass people get a different bin.

The quartz is crushed and sorted for purity so yes it'd be a different bin than the stuff going to make fused quartz for semiconductors.

The majority of the earth's crust is believed to be made of silicon dioxide. I don't know how much I would believe that we would have a scarcity. It may all come from one source simply because of history.

I'm not sure that's technically irony but rather an interesting coincidence.

A coincidence is not ironic

Spruce Pine doesn't use sand, they mine large quartz crystals out of pegmatites.