How Helene damage in one town could disrupt the chip sector (excerpt)
Hurricane Helene may have an unexpected impact on the chip sector. A small town in North Carolina called Spruce Pines produces a significant portion of the quartz needed to make semiconductors. The storm devastated the town and
halted mining operations. Peter Hanbury, Bain & Company partner, and leader of operations for technology practice, joins
Josh Schafer and
Madison Mills on Market Domination Overtime to discuss the potential impact on chipmakers.
“The situation in North Carolina has the potential to have a big impact on the industry if it lasts for more than six months… The high-purity quartz produced is really critical to the industry in two ways. It helps produce the silicon wafers that form the basis of all semiconductor products, and it's also used in the wafer manufacturing tools used by TSMC (
TSM), Intel (
INTC), and Micron (
MU).”
---(end excerpt)
Just goes to show that concentrations in your supply chain, always has risk. So does "just in time" inventory management - Shocking I know ... yet that is the world we live in.