Page 19 - april_032522.indd
P. 19
TAP TIMES -19- APRIL 2022
Ukraine invasion may
impact chip gas supply
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Ukraine is a ma-
jor supplier of raw material gases for
semiconductors including neon, ar-
gon, krypton, and xenon, according to
TrendForce’s investigations. Ukraine
supplies nearly 70% of the world’s
neon gas capacity.
Neon a necessary resource The Russian invasion of Ukraine is likely to affect prices of neon
and other gases. This is a panoramic photo of Kiev.
Although the proportion of neon gas used
in semiconductor processes is not as high ture and, thus, is difficult to replace. The
as in other industries, it is still a necessary semiconductor lithography process that
resource. If the supply of materials is cut requires neon gas is primarily DUV ex-
off, there will be an impact on the indus- posure, and encompasses 8-inch wafer
try. 180nm to 12-inch wafer 1Xnm nodes.
TrendForce believes that, although the TrendForce research shows found-
Ukrainian-Russian conflict may affect the ries’ global production capacity at the
supply of inert gas regionally, semiconduc- 180~1Xnm nodes accounting for approxi-
tor factories and gas suppliers are stocked mately 75% of total capacity.
and there are still supplies from other
regions. Samsung and TSMC are exceptions
The exceptions are Samsung and TSMC,
Higher prices who provide advanced EUV processes, for
Thus, gas production-line interruptions in most fabs, the proportion of revenue at-
Ukraine will not halt semiconductor pro- tributed to the 180~1Xnm nodes exceeds
duction lines in the short term. However, 90%.
the reduction in gas supply will likely lead
to higher prices which may increase the In addition, the manufacturing processes
cost of wafer production. of components in extreme short supply
since 2020, including PMIC, Wi-Fi, RFIC,
Inert gases are primarily used in semi- and MCU all fall within the 180~1Xnm
conductor lithography processes. When node range.
the circuit feature size is reduced to below
220nm, it begins to enter the territory of In terms of DRAM, in addition to Micron,
DUV (deep ultraviolet) light source ex- Korean manufacturers are gradually in-
cimer lasers. creasing the proportion of 1alpha nm
nodes (using the EUV process) but more
The wavelength of the DUV light generated than 90% of production capacity still em-
by the energy beam advances circuit fea- ploys the DUV process.
ture sizes to below 180nm. The inert gas
mixture required in the DUV excimer laser In addition, all NAND Flash capacity uti-
contains neon gas. lizes DUV lithography technology.
Neon gas is indispensable in this mix trendforce.com
