Jul 7 2011
Manufacturers of a broad spectrum of high-tech products have been feeling the impact of price hikes in rare earth element-based processing materials because of the Chinese embargo in late 2010, according to the report “Rare Earths Elements In High-Tech Industries: Market Analysis And Forecasts Amid China’s Trade Embargo”, recently published by The Information Network (www.theinformationnet.com), a New Tripoli, PA-based market research company.
China, which accounts for 90 percent of global rare earth supplies, has been tightening trade in the strategic metals since late 2010, resulting in an explosion in prices.
“In the past few days we have learned that vast deposits of rare earth minerals, crucial in making high-tech electronics products, have been found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and can be readily extracted,” noted Dr. Robert Castellano, president of The Information Network. “Discovered by Japanese scientists, it is estimated that rare earths contained in the deposits amounted to 80 to 100 billion metric tons, compared to global reserves currently confirmed by the U.S. Geological Survey of just 110 million tonnes that have been found mainly in China, Russia and other former Soviet countries, and the United States.”
Japan accounts for a third of global demand and has been looking to diversify its supply sources, particularly of heavy rare earths such as dysprosium used in magnets.
In semiconductor manufacturing, rare earth materials are used as high-k dielectric films and as polishing materials in CMP. Prices of ceria, used in STI planarization slurries, have increased 1300% in the past year.
Ceria is also used in the polishing of glass disks for hard disk drives (HDDs), LCD panels, and high brightness LEDs (HBLEDs).
Europium is a rare earth used as a phosphor in Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFL) used in backlights for notebooks and in PDP TVs. Price hikes of 170% in the past year for Europium are filtering down the supply chain to manufacturers of these end products.
Neodymium is a rare earth element used in magnets for HDDs, wind turbines, and hybrid electric vehicles. Neodymium is already in short supply, and prices have increase 420% in the past 12 months.
“During the past twenty years there has been an explosion in demand for many items that require rare earth metals. China being China capitalized on its rich rare earth deposits and cheap labor to drive down prices to a point that nearly every mine outside China was forced to shut down because they couldn’t compete on price. The ROW being the ROW allowed China to take away business because of cheap labor,” added Dr. Castellano.
According to the report, China can supply rare earth products as pure as 99.9999%, while French companies can only produce 99.999% pure products and Japanese firms generally produce 99.9% purity products. With a supply chain of raw material and refining prowess, this is a wake-up call for non-Chinese mining operations, governments, and corporations to take proactive steps to get out of the stranglehold China has on the rest of the world.
The Information Network is a leading consulting and market research company addressing the semiconductor, LCD, HDD, nano, and solar industries.
Source: www.theinformationnet.com