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Ukraine situation may impact Neon gas is indispensable in this mixture
semiconductor neon supply and, thus, difficult to replace.
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Ukraine is a major DUV requires neon gas
supplier of raw material gases for The semiconductor lithography process
semiconductors including neon, ar- that requires neon gas is primarily DUV
gon, krypton, and xenon, according ex posure, and encompasses 8-inch wafer
to TrendForce’s investigations. 180nm to 12-inch wafer 1Xnm nodes.
70% of neon gas capacity
That country, in fact, supplies nearly
70% of the world’s neon gas capacity.
Although the proportion of neon gas used
in semiconductor processes is not as high
as in other industries, it is still a neces-
sary resource.
If the supply of materials is cut off, there
will be an impact on the industry. Trend- This is Kiev, Ukraine’s capitol city. The Russian situation may
Force believes that, although the Ukraini- impact the supply of neon gas, at least on the long term.
an-Russian conflict may affect the supply
of inert gas regionally, semiconductor TrendForce research shows global found-
factories and gas suppliers are stocked ry production capacity at the 180~1Xnm
and there are still supplies from other nodes accounts for approximately 75% of
regions. total capacity. This excludes Samsung and
TSMC that provide advanced EUV process-
Higher prices es.
Thus, gas production line interruptions in
Ukraine will not halt semiconductor pro- For most fabs, the proportion of revenue
duction lines in the short term. However, attributed to the 180~1Xnm nodes exceeds
the reduction in gas supply will likely lead 90%.
to higher prices which may increase the
cost of wafer production. In addition, the manufacturing processes of
components in extreme short supply since
2020, including PMIC, Wi-Fi, RFIC, and MCU
Inert gases are primarily used in semi-
conductor lithography processes. When all fall within the 180~1Xnm node range.
the circuit feature size is reduced to be-
low 220nm, it begins to enter the territo- DRAMs may also be affected
ry of DUV (deep ultraviolet) light source For DRAMs, in addition to Micron, Korean
excimer lasers. manufacturers are gradually increasing the
proportion of 1alpha nm nodes (using the
The wavelength of the DUV light generat- EUV process); more than 90% of produc-
ed by the energy beam advances circuit tion capacity still employs the DUV process.
feature sizes to below 180nm. In addition, all NAND Flash capacity utilizes
DUV lithography technology.
trendforce.com
The inert gas mixture required in the
DUV excimer laser contains neon gas. Reach more markets with TAP TIMES!
