The map
Every qualified producer of the fifteen materials on the desk.
This is Phase 1, published as it is built rather than when it is finished. Each row asserts three things and no more: a company’s name, where it operates, and which step of the chain it occupies. There is no column for capacity, market share or revenue, because this firm has not sourced those numbers — and a table that implies otherwise is worse than an empty one.
A row marked “unverified lead” is exactly that: a research lead we believe is right and have not yet confirmed against a primary source. It is not a finding. When an analyst attaches the source, the row flips to “sourced” and the meter below moves. That meter is the honest measure of how far along this is.
Corrections are the reason this is public. If you work in one of these chains and a row is wrong, telling us makes the map better for everyone who reads it next.
Coverage
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15 materials, 92 producer rows. Phase 1 completes when every row carries a source.
Materials
Fifteen chokepoints. The number beside each is how many producers are mapped.
- 01High-purity tin, EUV droplet grade7
- 02Neon, excimer laser grade6
- 03Ruthenium, sputtering and ALD grade8
- 04Electronic-grade polysilicon6
- 05300 mm prime silicon wafers5
- 06Crucible-grade high-purity quartz sand7
- 07Gallium, refined6
- 08CVD synthetic diamond heat spreader5
- 09Silicon carbide substrate, 200 mm semi-insulating6
- 10Two-phase dielectric immersion coolant5
- 11Grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES)7
- 12REBCO superconducting tape, 12 mm7
- 13Liquid helium (He-4)6
- 14Didymium (Nd-Pr) metal, magnet feed6
- 15Dysprosium metal5
High-purity tin, EUV droplet grade
Tin metal is not scarce; tin at seven nines, qualified for an EUV source, is. The chokepoint is the upgrading step, not the mine. Traded grade: 7N (99.99999%) tin, shot or ingot, certificate of analysis per lot. · Lithography & Optics
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yunnan Tin | CN | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Minsur | PE | Refine | Unverified lead |
| PT Timah | ID | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Malaysia Smelting Corporation | MY | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Indium Corporation | US | Convert | Unverified lead |
| 5N Plus | CA DE | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Aurubis | DE | Recycle | Unverified lead |
Neon, excimer laser grade
Neon is separated from air, but economically only alongside large-scale air separation attached to steelmaking — which is why an industrial gas map and a war map turned out to be the same map in 2022. Traded grade: ≥99.999% neon, cylinder or ISO container, blended mixes to order. · Lithography & Optics
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linde | GB US DE | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Air Liquide | FR | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Messer | DE | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Iceblick | UA | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Cryoin Engineering | UA | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Baosteel Gases | CN | Refine | Unverified lead |
Ruthenium, sputtering and ALD grade
Ruthenium is a by-product of PGM mining, so supply is set by platinum and palladium economics rather than by demand for ruthenium. Refining and target fabrication are separately concentrated. Traded grade: 4N ruthenium, targets or precursor feed, PGM-refiner traceable. · Lithography & Optics
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sibanye-Stillwater | ZA | Mine / extract | Unverified lead |
| Impala Platinum | ZA | Mine / extract | Unverified lead |
| Nornickel | RU | Mine / extract | Unverified lead |
| Heraeus | DE | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Johnson Matthey | GB | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Umicore | BE | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Furuya Metal | JP | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Tanaka Kikinzoku | JP | Convert | Unverified lead |
Electronic-grade polysilicon
Solar-grade polysilicon has many producers; electronic-grade has very few, and the gap between the two is measured in orders of magnitude of impurity, not in price. Traded grade: 11N (99.999999999%) polysilicon chunk or rod, Siemens process. · Semiconductor Feedstock
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wacker Chemie | DE US | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Hemlock Semiconductor | US | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Tokuyama | JP MY | Refine | Unverified lead |
| OCI | KR MY | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Mitsubishi Materials | JP | Refine | Unverified lead |
| REC Silicon | US NO | Refine | Unverified lead |
300 mm prime silicon wafers
Five firms supply essentially all prime 300 mm wafer capacity. Qualification at a leading-edge fab takes years, so the barrier is certification history rather than capital. Traded grade: Prime polished 300 mm, p-type or n-type, epi to specification. · Semiconductor Feedstock
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shin-Etsu Handotai | JP | Convert | Unverified lead |
| SUMCO | JP | Convert | Unverified lead |
| GlobalWafers | TW | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Siltronic | DE | Convert | Unverified lead |
| SK Siltron | KR | Convert | Unverified lead |
Crucible-grade high-purity quartz sand
The clearest single point of failure in the entire chain: inner-layer crucible quartz comes, in practice, from a very small number of deposits, and every Czochralski puller on earth needs it. Traded grade: Inner-layer crucible grade, ≤ 20 ppm total impurities. · Semiconductor Feedstock
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Quartz Corp | NO US | Mine / extract | Unverified lead |
| Sibelco | BE US | Mine / extract | Unverified lead |
| Russian Quartz | RU | Mine / extract | Unverified lead |
| Jiangsu Pacific Quartz | CN | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Momentive Technologies | US | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Shin-Etsu Quartz | JP | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Ferrotec | JP CN | Convert | Unverified lead |
Gallium, refined
A by-product of alumina refining, so primary supply cannot respond to price. Concentrated in one jurisdiction and under export control since 2023 — the textbook case for why the map matters. Traded grade: 4N–7N gallium metal. Export-licence and end-use documentation required. · Semiconductor Feedstock
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chinalco | CN | Refine | Unverified lead |
| East Hope Group | CN | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Zhuhai Fangyuan | CN | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Rio Tinto | CA | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Nyrstar | AU | Refine | Unverified lead |
| 5N Plus | CA | Convert | Unverified lead |
CVD synthetic diamond heat spreader
Reactor time, not raw material, is the constraint. Growing optical-grade polycrystalline diamond is slow, and the qualified capacity is held by a handful of firms. Traded grade: Polycrystalline CVD diamond, 10 × 10 mm, metallised to specification. · Thermal & Packaging
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Element Six | GB IE | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Coherent | US | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Diamond Materials | DE | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Applied Diamond | US | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Sumitomo Electric | JP | Convert | Unverified lead |
Silicon carbide substrate, 200 mm semi-insulating
The 150 mm to 200 mm transition resets everyone’s yield curve at once. Semi-insulating grade is a much smaller field than conductive SiC, and defect density is the gate. Traded grade: 200 mm semi-insulating 4H-SiC, micropipe density to specification. · Thermal & Packaging
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wolfspeed | US | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Coherent | US | Convert | Unverified lead |
| SK Siltron CSS | KR US | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Resonac | JP | Convert | Unverified lead |
| SICC | CN | Convert | Unverified lead |
| TankeBlue | CN | Convert | Unverified lead |
Two-phase dielectric immersion coolant
A chokepoint created by regulation rather than geology: PFAS restriction is withdrawing the incumbent fluorinated chemistry precisely as immersion cooling starts to scale. Traded grade: Engineered fluid, boiling point matched to the target die temperature. · Thermal & Packaging
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3M | US | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Chemours | US | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Syensqo | BE | Refine | Unverified lead |
| AGC | JP | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Engineered Fluids | US | Convert | Unverified lead |
Grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES)
The binding constraint on datacentre energisation. Large power transformers queue for years, and the core steel behind them is made on a small number of qualified lines. Traded grade: M3-class grain-oriented silicon steel, coil, coated. · Power, Grid & Superconductors
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nippon Steel | JP | Convert | Unverified lead |
| JFE Steel | JP | Convert | Unverified lead |
| POSCO | KR | Convert | Unverified lead |
| ThyssenKrupp Electrical Steel | DE | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Cleveland-Cliffs | US | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Baosteel | CN | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Stalprodukt | PL | Convert | Unverified lead |
REBCO superconducting tape, 12 mm
A single high-field fusion magnet consumes tape by the kilometre. Annual world output is small enough that one programme’s order book moves the whole market. Traded grade: 12 mm REBCO tape, critical current specified at 77 K, self-field. · Power, Grid & Superconductors
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fujikura | JP | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Faraday Factory Japan | JP | Convert | Unverified lead |
| SuperPower | US | Convert | Unverified lead |
| MetOx | US | Convert | Unverified lead |
| THEVA | DE | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Shanghai Superconductor | CN | Convert | Unverified lead |
| AMSC | US | Convert | Unverified lead |
Liquid helium (He-4)
Helium is produced only as a by-product of a few natural gas fields with unusual composition, so supply is set by unrelated gas economics and by a handful of political jurisdictions. Traded grade: 5N liquid helium, dewar or ISO container, boil-off terms per contract. · Power, Grid & Superconductors
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| QatarEnergy | QA | Mine / extract | Unverified lead |
| ExxonMobil | US | Mine / extract | Unverified lead |
| Gazprom | RU | Mine / extract | Unverified lead |
| Air Products | US | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Linde | US GB | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Air Liquide | FR | Refine | Unverified lead |
Didymium (Nd-Pr) metal, magnet feed
Mining is diversifying; separation and metal-making have not. The chokepoint moved downstream of the mine, which is where most published coverage still is not looking. Traded grade: Nd-Pr metal ingot, 75/25 nominal, ≥99% RE. · Actuation & Robotics
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| China Northern Rare Earth | CN | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Shenghe Resources | CN | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Lynas Rare Earths | AU MY | Refine | Unverified lead |
| MP Materials | US | Mine / extract | Unverified lead |
| Neo Performance Materials | CA EE | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Solvay | FR | Refine | Unverified lead |
Dysprosium metal
Heavy rare earths are a far narrower chain than light ones, feedstock included. Small volumes, no substitute for hot-running magnets, and separation concentrated in effectively one jurisdiction. Traded grade: ≥99% dysprosium metal. Export-licence and end-use documentation required. · Actuation & Robotics
| Company | Jurisdiction | Step in the chain | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| China Rare Earth Group | CN | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Shenghe Resources | CN | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Lynas Rare Earths | AU MY | Refine | Unverified lead |
| Neo Performance Materials | CA EE | Convert | Unverified lead |
| Less Common Metals | GB | Convert | Unverified lead |