China's Quartz Producer Gains Ground in Chipmaking, Yet Spruce Pine Retains Critical Edge
Jiangsu Pacific Quartz has begun supplying high-purity quartz to major semiconductor equipment makers and passed certification for DRAM production, but the U.S. maintains dominance in the most demanding applications.
A Chinese quartz manufacturer is making inroads into the semiconductor supply chain, though it has not yet displaced the American suppliers that control the most critical segment of the market. Jiangsu Pacific Quartz, which produces high-purity quartz (HPQ), has been delivering its material to major chipmaking equipment manufacturers, including Lam Research and Tokyo Electron, since the 2019–2020 period. The company recently achieved another milestone when its quartz products earned certification from a leading Chinese DRAM maker, believed to be CXMT, for use in 300-mm wafer production.
The distinction between where Pacific Quartz operates and where it cannot yet compete is crucial to understanding the limits of China's current progress. Pacific Quartz supplies consumables for semiconductor manufacturing equipment—items such as LPCVD diffusion tubes, wafer boats, quartz ingots, quartz plates, and high-purity quartz tubes. These components typically require quartz at 4N5 to 5N purity levels, meaning 99.995% to 99.999% silicon dioxide (SiO₂). The company's materials meet these specifications.
However, a different category of quartz application remains beyond Pacific Quartz's current reach. Silicon wafer ingots are grown inside crucibles manufactured from ultra-pure fused quartz, with purity exceeding 99.999% (5N+) and extremely tight constraints on individual contaminants. At present, only Sibelco and The Quartz Corp., both operating in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, plus Russian Quartz LLC, which produces in smaller quantities, can supply such material in meaningful volumes.
The significance of Pacific Quartz's DRAM certification extends beyond a single contract. According to analyst TP Huang, who hosts the China Tech Talk podcast, the achievement demonstrates the emergence of a largely domestic Chinese supply chain. The chain begins with Pacific Quartz's refined high-purity quartz sand, flows through processing into semiconductor furnace-tube material, and reaches a DRAM fabrication facility. Furnace tubes themselves demand roughly 5N-class high-purity fused quartz, with strict limits on electrically active and mobile contaminants that could otherwise migrate onto hot silicon wafers and introduce defects that reduce manufacturing yield.
While Pacific Quartz has demonstrated capability in equipment-grade quartz, the company has not yet proven it can produce crucibles with the 9N to 11N purity required for wafer ingot growth. Whether this gap will narrow in coming years remains uncertain.
Source: Tom's Hardware