The Secret Ingredient in Silicon Chips comes from North Carolina

news.bbc.co.uk

The people interviewed in the article claim that "if we shut the gates... they wouldn't be able to make computers anymore". But elsewhere in the article it makes clear that making pure quartz artificially is simply much more expensive than pulling it out of the ground. So it's not really a secret ingredient, it's just the cheapest available source.

The article is inconsistent. First, it claims that there is something special and important about the quartz mined there. Then, it turns around and claims that there is something important and secret about the processes used there.

If we're going to logic-chop... no, actually, it is not inconsistent. To be inconsistent, to be contradictory, it would have to claim both that the sole important thing is the natural quality of the quartz, and the sole important thing is the secret processes.

It does neither. It claims the quartz is unique, and the processes important. This is not a contradiction. (Both could well be necessary: it's common sense that good material could be ruined by a bad process, or that a good process can fail on bad material.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com