Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) will produce 3 nanometer chips at its second, still-under-construction plant in Kumamoto, Japan, the company announced Thursday.
Eleven 9 has to be mined, and there’s only one spot in the world were it exists. A little town in North Carolina.
What
Silicon wafer production just started with metallurgical grade quartzite and then chemically processed into high purity. The input material is usually around 98% purity.
Another factor here is that to make the most advanced chips, you need something called eleven 9 silicon. That’s silicon that’s 99.999999999% pure.
We can only artificially manufacture up to nine 9 silicon.
Eleven 9 has to be mined, and there’s only one spot in the world were it exists. A little town in North Carolina.
That’s why the US gets to say who can even attempt to manufacture advanced chips.
What
Silicon wafer production just started with metallurgical grade quartzite and then chemically processed into high purity. The input material is usually around 98% purity.