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Comment by MontyCarloHall | Hacker News Reader

>There’s always The One Factory In North Carolina That Produces The Essential Ingredient and it turns out that it’s just the price optimal one and there is enough capacity around the world to substitute.

If you're referring to Spruce Pine in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene [0, 1], the predictions that chipmaking would be severely disrupted turned out to not come true because the Spruce Pine mine sustained a lot less damage than initially feared and was made operational within a week or two [2], not because high-purity quartz is commoditized.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s1-5133462/hurricane-helen...

[1] https://www.aveva.com/en/our-industrial-life/type/article/hu...

[2] https://www.cbs17.com/news/north-carolina-news/spruce-pine-q...

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I think his bigger point is that it seems to always go this way. About two weeks ago there was a panic about helium and chipmaking and the crisis that the strait would cause. One that didn't even bother to look into where helium is sourced.

I think the world is much, much more varied and complex than these "this is the one true doom" mindsets can fathom. It's a constructed theory that makes perfect sense until it meets the real world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IsR06zf8nQ

The simpler explanation is that an industry insider who can publish a piece saying “helium shortage will mean the end of chip making as we know it” can get a lot more views and clicks than one who published “chip making will get mildly more expensive because one of the key ingredients is going to need to be sourced from farther away or from more expensive suppliers”. There is always an angle, whether it is clout, pumping the market, selling you something, etc. and when you are not an industry insider there is little you can do to understand where else you can buy the particular ingredient from so it sounds plausible.

I think they are saying it isn’t so rare that it couldn’t become commoditized

The Spruce Mine story was a classic case of this hysteria as there were other sources of pure silica e.g. Norway

Synthetic quartz can already be produced at 5N with high consistency. It's also rapidly decreasing in price. China has been investing a lot in it. I don't think we're at all far away from price parity between synthetic and mined quartz

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