SEMATECH News

Techcet Group Releases Reports on Critical Semiconductor Materials

Austin, TX (12 March 2004) -- Techcet Group, LLC has released its 2003/2004 Critical Materials Reports highlighting resource and supply issues for raw materials vital to the semiconductor industry. The reports were commissioned by International SEMATECH and subsequently have been made available to other customers.

In the studies (available at http://www.techcet.com/information.shtml), Techcet provides status on the health of the supply chain and associated business and technical drivers of various process materials used for semiconductor device fabrication.

Separate reports provide data on chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP) consumables, bulk and specialty gases, graphite, quartz, sputtering targets, photomasks, photoresists, lithography ancillaries, silicon carbide, wet chemicals, advanced dielectrics, advanced metallization, and packaging.

Each report covers three key subject areas:

  • Business issues (market size, growth, etc.)
  • Technical trends (new materials and why)
  • Supply chain sensitivities

A key focus of the Techcet's Critical Material Reports is the highlighting of issues that ultimately could interrupt chip production. For instance, many fabricators may not be aware of the huge dependencies the photomask market has on particular suppliers in certain markets, or the potential for catastrophic events to disrupt key parts of the industry supply chain.

Techcet also highlights consumption of the critical materials by other industries that could potentially make the chip fabricators vulnerable to supply shortages. For instance, the capacitor industry is one of the largest consumers of tantalum metal. It has been seen that as production volumes of capacitors increase, availability of tantalum to the semiconductor market can be severely squeezed.

In addition to vulnerabilities associated with a small supplier base, or industries that consume the same materials, Techcet also tracks the impact of chip production growth on the materials market.

Business and technical trends are also are covered by the Techcet reports. For example, on-line bidding or reverse auctioning is discussed in terms of its impact to the supply chain. New etch, CMP cleans and photoresist chemistries are being required as a result of the insertion of Low K dielectric materials.