Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization

by Ed Conway

Few, even in the industry itself, understand the length and complexity of this journey, the number of processes involved, the quantity of companies playing a part. The media frequently writes about Apple, sometimes about Foxconn. Occasionally specialist outlets write about TSMC and maybe even ASML. They cite the centrality of Taiwan and the Netherlands to the semiconductor supply chain. But this is only the tip of the iceberg, for there are hundreds of other companies without whom these somewhat more prominent parts of the supply chain would be unable to function. What about Linton Crystal, which makes the furnaces for the Czochralski process and the diamond saws that slice up the boules? What about JSR, one of the world leaders in photoresist technology? What about EV Group and IMS Nanofabrication, which dominate wafer bonding and mask production and are both based in Austria? What about all the other firms providing critical machinery for the fabs, which read like a list of mysterious names and acronyms: Veeco, Tokyo Electron, Lam Research, ASM Pacific, Applied Materials and Edwards…? Remove one or two of these companies and, well: no more computers or smartphones.