ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Does All Semiconductor Manufacturing Depend on Spruce Pine Quartz? “Sort of. Quartz crucibles are indeed necessary for most semiconductor manufacturing, and Spruce Pine is where most of this quartz comes from. Spruce Pine quartz isn’t quite an irreplaceable linchpin in semiconductor manufacturing. But alternatives are all some combination of not yet developed, not quite as good, and not quite as cheap. Cutting off the supply of Spruce Pine quartz probably wouldn’t choke off the supply of semiconductors completely, but it would mean yields going down and costs going up. The industry is aware of the bottleneck: new sources of quartz are being developed, and new crucible materials are being investigated. A new crucible material, if found, would have a particularly large impact: not just because it would eliminate the Spruce Pine bottleneck, but because quartz is a major limiting factor in silicon ingot manufacturing, and a new, better material could potentially increase production efficiencies dramatically.”