The war between Russia and Ukraine is officially declared as invading Russian forces are closing in on Ukraine’s capital after a barrage of air attacks targeting different cities and military bases.
Due to the looming threat of an economic decline and supply strains, the effects of this war will affect other industries as well. Top chip companies including TSMC and UMC are reviewing their supply of critical industrial gases to avoid supply disruptions.
The reason for this is that Russia and Ukraine are highly important sources of noble gases and precious metals used in chipmaking. Ukraine accounts for about 70% of the world’s supply of Neon, a key noble gas. Therefore, supply constraints in that region will have significant impacts.
This could exacerbate the global chip shortage, especially since TSMC supplies almost all leading global chip developers, including Apple, Google, Qualcomm, and Nvidia. UMC, on the other hand, supplies chips to Samsung, Qualcomm, and several other names.
TSMC and UMC, the world’s largest and fourth-largest chipmakers, respectively, have recently met with their key gas suppliers to make sure the supply will continue in the near future. These meetings took place soon after Russia’s invasion began. The news comes from multiple industry sources that are familiar with the matter.
The two companies have also been looking into alternative ways of sources of such gases ever since the pandemic.