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 
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
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.Spruce Pine is fucked right now, eye of the hurricane went right over. National Guard is already there though so they will be receiving aid sooner than other communities.
i am like baby when it comes to tech manufacturing but i do happen to be aware that quartz is an exceedingly common rock, so what on earth is this about
like do semiconductors need literal tons of quartz? very specific kinds of quartz? this is genuinely baffling
It is very pure. You can use any quartz, but then you have to purify it first, and it is expensive.
really? you have to do that for like, everything you mine. does this NC one just have such an amazing deposit that it makes other options uneconomical?
Kinda? Western NC has been a mining hub for forever and they aren’t short on quartz at all. You could do it other places but I imagine the startup costs and the relatively poor margins on that kind of manufacturing make it unattractive, at least in America.
Quartz is pretty common as a digital oscillator but it’s possible to use other methods. Certain iPhones used a different oscillator that are sensitive to atmospheric Helium.
Not sure where else in the supply chain it’s needed, and how easily it is to swap quartz oscillators for other components in existing designs.
digital oscillator
i have no idea what an oscillator gizmo entails
MEMS are also made of silicon.
quartz oscillators were basically the first MEMS.(i wrote that but actually its not true lol. something else cool is saw filters which kind of build on the concept of quartz oscillators btw) cool fact: the reason helium kills MEMS is because the atoms are so small that they can diffuse their way through the wall of the device, filling it up with helium and the air resistance then stops it from working!
Don’t post let’s blow it up. Don’t post let’s blow it up
I’m not really sure you need to lol seems like the hurricane might’ve done it for you
Yeah well I did have countless people tell me when I was younger that I was over blowing the effects of climate change. Also one of our politicians did just insist that we wouldn’t stop driving cars because we are a car driving country. So I’m gonna lol as this country collapses because I’ve spent 16 years here and was treated like a lunatic when I spoke about stuff like this.
Just looking at Apple Maps you can tell shit ain’t good
Ain’t got no roads left
