Blank wafer suppliers are not totally blank
AI requires more Silicon capacity
Deep in the supply chain, some wizards turn sand into perfect diamond-structured crystal disks of silicon, which are necessary for the entire semiconductor supply chain.
They are part of the semiconductor supply chain, making Silicon Sand almost a thousand times more valuable.
The glimmer you see on the beach is Silicon. Silicon is a complex crystalline, brittle and solid metalloid (Metal and non-metal properties). Silicon is everywhere.
Behind oxygen, silicon is the 2nd most common material on Earth and the 7th most common material in the universe.
Silicon is a Semiconductor, which means it has electrical properties between a conductor (such as copper) and an insulator (such as glass).
A minute amount of foreign atoms in the silicon structure can radically change its behaviour, so semiconductor-grade silicon has to be incredibly pure. The lowest acceptable purity for ele…