Hurricane Helene disrupts chip supply chain: quartz sand mining impaired

Helene caused extensive damage in the Appalachian Mountains. This is an important mining area for high-purity quartz sand, which is processed into wafers.

Sibelco quartz sand open pit mine in Spruce Pine, North Carolina

(Image: Sibelco/YouTube)

Oct 2, 2024 at 9:37 pm CEST

3 min. read

c't Magazin

By

Christof Windeck

Heavy rain caused by Hurricane Helene has caused severe damage in the USA. The area around the town of Spruce Pine in the Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina, was also affected.

This is an important mining area for particularly pure quartz sand, which is used worldwide for the production of silicon wafers for both solar cells (photovoltaics) and semiconductor components. In particular, the companies Sibelco and The Quartz Corp operate quarries and processing plants in Spruce Pine.

Both companies report that the extent of the damage is not yet foreseeable. Above all, the infrastructure in the region has probably been severely damaged: roads, railroad tracks and also the power supply.

When production and delivery of the chip raw material can be resumed is currently of secondary importance, reports The Quartz Corporation: the highest priority is the well-being of the employees and the population. Not all employees have been reached yet.

Potential for disruption difficult to assess

An "ingot" of high-purity monocrystalline silicon before it is sawn into slices (wafers).

(Image: c’t Magazin)

According to the websites of Sibelco and The Quartz Corp, the Spruce Pine mining area is one of the world's most important sources of high-purity quartz sand for wafers. The companies do not provide specific market shares.

However, a recent report by the European Solar PC Industry Alliance (ESIA) estimates that the two companies produce 80 percent of the high-purity quartz sand that goes into the manufacture of polysilicon wafers for photovoltaics worldwide. Chinese companies dominate over 95 percent of this market, writes the market research company Bernreuter Research. Sibelco also supplies some of these Chinese solar wafer manufacturers.

The market for high-purity monocrystalline wafers for the manufacture of semiconductor components is significantly smaller. The leading manufacturers here are Shin-Etsu and Sumco from Japan, SK Siltron (Korea), Siltronic (Germany) and GlobalWafers (Taiwan). GlobalWafers, among others, also operates plants in the USA.

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It is unlikely that the supply of wafers for chip production will be impaired in the short term: processing quartz sand into wafers is a complex process that takes several months. Whether wafers become scarcer or more expensive in the medium term therefore depends on when the mining companies are able to supply quartz sand from the Appalachian Mountains again.

Global supply chains

A processed silicon wafer with Intel chips.

(Image: c’t Magazin)

Both Sibelco (Belgium) and The Quartz Corp (Norway) are European companies. Sibelco built processing plants in Spruce Pine a few years ago at a cost of over 200 million US dollars, which process the quarried stone into high-purity quartz sand.

The Quartz Corp, on the other hand, processes the pre-purified raw material from the Appalachian Mountains in Drag, Norway.

High-purity quartz sand is also used in the manufacture of certain optical glasses and for fiber optic cables.