Semiconductors and "FULL CONDUCTORS"

There is no thing like "full conductor" but it is a joke from a totalitarian communist leader who was bragging he would build the biggest plant for semiconductors in the world this year and the next for "full conductors". He was not very intelligent man, didn’t study university and even high school, and didn’t know there was no term "full conductors", but anyway, he wanted to impress the audience, a group of the best prospective students. But he could rule for 50 years this totalitarian economy. He could do it because of the existence of the so called "Committee of Economic Cooperation", created under the Warsaw pact (analog of NATO, created in Eastern Europe in 1955) in Eastern Europe, that gave chance to different smaller countries in Eastern Europe to develop their own economies, on the principle of the centralized distribution of the production between the countries, where any of them can produce what can do best, and Russia was supplying the raw materials very cheap.

The biggest part of the semiconductors in the world is produced now in China - 24%, followed by Taiwan at 21% and South Korea at 19%. If the USA loses Taiwan they will lose big amount of production that again will fall under China. And then comes South Korea. Can we balance the production from South Korea with our needs. And if we build the plant for semiconductors, that Biden promised, could we supply it with raw materials, and at the same time to keep the good relations with the third producer South Korea. That was the issue that Biden had to decide on the so necessary market of semiconductors (chips), which is necessary for any industry – computers, smart phones, home appliances, military production, everything electronic.

Semiconductors are made from a variety of raw materials, including?silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide, and indium phosphide.?

The biggest producer of raw material gallium is China. The biggest producer of silicon is China again, and then Russia. The biggest producer of germanium is again China. The biggest producer of indium is again China.

Whatever is doing the US in the semiconductor production again is in need of import of raw materials. Again from China and other countries.?

But there is one material that is not included in the semiconductors but is essential for their production - neon. Neon is another material needed for processing of the semiconductors, even it doesn’t present in the chips. Big amounts,??70% of the world production of neon is going for production of semiconductors. Who is the biggest producer of neon??

The fact that I didn’t know till now is that?Ukraine?is the world's largest supplier of noble gases including neon, krypton, and xenon. Globally, Ukraine supplies about 70% of the world's neon gas and 40% of the global krypton supply. Moreover, Ukraine supplies 90% of the highly purified, semiconductor-grade neon for chip production used by the U.S. industry.?

90% of the chip needed neon is produced in Ukraine in Mariopul and in Odessa.(see the map above)?Two factories of Ukraine - Ingaz in Mariupol, and Kryoin - in Odessa are producing neon, the rest is produced in China and Russia. With the start of the special operation Mariopul Ingaz was closed and Odessa Crayon is also closed now.

Neon is sub product of the steel production. With the fall of Mariupol in Ukraine under Russian control USA lost access to Azov Sea, but also the USA economy lost its supplier of neon, that will hit the American economy this year and the next year. And with the fall of Odessa will be lost access to Black Sea and again to the so needed neon. The whole world production of chips could start to suffer. That is why is so important for the Chinese interest to be friendly with Russia, while balancing with Ukraine.??

Opening new productions of steel is possible but takes time and energy, again gas. And the time is at least 2 years. Nobody can wait for 2 years in this business.?

The Russian military operation will unfold in the Black Sea as show all the signs at the moment. The moving of the troops and military machinery will try anything possible to keep the access of Ukraine to the Black sea. That is one of the offensive goals of the Ukrainians.??But the same is doing Russia. Russia won't let Ukraine to keep the access to the Black sea either, where the main port is Odessa. Russia always considered Odessa its city, and during the Soviet times made anything possible to develop the city as the third most important city after Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Now Russian is the main language in Odessa and the people who identify them as Russians are around 30% of the population. There also lives a big group of Jewish people. Putin made it clear that one of main goals of the military operation will be to gather together the Russian people under one country.?