Sibelco
HQ BE
Global minerals company; one of two principal producers of crucible-grade high-purity quartz from Spruce Pine, NC.
mineral · input
Crucible-Grade High-Purity Quartz (HPQ)
Ultra-high-purity quartz (>99.99% SiO2, ppm-level impurities) melted into the fused-silica crucibles that hold molten silicon during Czochralski crystal growth of monocrystalline silicon for semiconductor wafers and solar cells. The crucible must be purer than the silicon it holds. Supply is overwhelmingly from the Spruce Pine, NC deposit via The Quartz Corp and Sibelco — among the most extreme single-geography chokepoints in technology.
1
Source countries
2
Companies
3
Goods affected
0
Claims on record
What depends on it
Goods that need this input
3 essential American goods rely on crucible-grade high-purity quartz (hpq) somewhere upstream in their supply chain.
Digital
Semiconductors and chips
Integrated circuits, microcontrollers, and chips embedded in vehicles, appliances, and electronics.
Digital
Specialty chips
Automotive, medical, industrial, and defense semiconductors on legacy nodes with long design cycles.
Digital
GPUs and AI accelerators
Graphics and AI compute chips for consumer gaming, professional visualization, and large-scale AI training.
Where it comes from
Source countries
Share of global supply, by country.
| Country | Share of supply |
|---|---|
| USUnited States | 90% |
Who makes it
Supplier companies
2 companies produce crucible-grade high-purity quartz (hpq).
The Quartz Corp (TQC)
HQ NO
Producer of ULTRA-high-purity quartz from Spruce Pine, North Carolina — the feedstock for semiconductor crucibles, fiber optics and solar.