5 ms·
> requiring a complete replacement roughly every two weeks, or complex and costly purification and recycling of the gaseous blende. It is a cost-benefit analysi
by jandrese 4y ago
> requiring a complete replacement roughly every two weeks, or complex and costly purification and recycling of the gaseous blende. It is a cost-benefit analysis for the $500 billion USD semiconductor industry.
Is the recycling process only available at lab scale currently due to the cost? How hard would it be to scale up? Or are chip companies betting on the war in Ukraine being over in a couple of months?
- trhway 4y agoSeems that recycling is really well established/developed and is really just a minor inconvenience and a cost that the chip makers will get to once they can't proceed as usual. https://www.photonicsonline.com/doc/how-one-light-source-manufacturer-overcame-the-neon-crisis-0001 https://www.photonicsonline.com/doc/how-one-light-source-man... https://asianometry.substack.com/p/neon-shortages-in-semiconductor-manufacturing https://asianometry.substack.com/p/neon-shortages-in-semicon...
- sandworm101 4y agoI don't understand how the "purification" process would be substantially more difficult than distilling neon from air. If the waste blend has a higher percentage of neon than air, it should probably be cheaper/easier than buying new. I suspect that the real inconvenience is in the capture systems, another set of tubes in the chip fab needing servicing and occasional downtime.