Hey single quartz factory in North Carolina that the "world's" semiconductor industry hinges on, how's it going?
Hey single quartz factory in North Carolina that the "world's" semiconductor industry hinges on, how's it going?
The deposits formed 380 million years ago when Africa collided with North America.
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 
More like
I have empathy for the human lives lost to flooding, but as for the disruption of the Yankkkee reich's quartz mines for the "world's" semiconductor industry specifically, I can only see that as a good thing.
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.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
Just looking at Apple Maps you can tell shit ain’t good
Ain’t got no roads left
this pic is too damn small
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
From the article, seems like it was due to unique geological properties.
Geologically speaking, the uniquely pure minerals at Spruce Mine were created about 380 million years ago when Africa collided with North America. This momentous collision, however slow, caused intense friction and heat miles below the Earth’s surface. According to Sibelco, the Spruce Mine minerals were created by a rich mineral-forming liquid that cooled and crystallized over time. A standout feature of these minerals is that they were made in their purest forms due to a lack of water, which caused all the friction.
It does later say that similarly high purity can be reached with synthetic quartz but that it would take time to scale up that industry.
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.
MEMS are also made of silicon. quartz oscillators were basically the first MEMS. 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!
High purity quartz has been identified as a strategic resource so a number of countries have started exploring sites or subsiding quartz mining - Russia, China, Australia and a few others
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.
