Technology

Will semiconductor production be derailed by Hurricane Helene?

Published

3 hours ago

October 4, 2024

Will semiconductor production be derailed by Hurricane Helene?

Constructing a semiconductor chip
IM Imagery/Shutterstock

The deadliest hurricane to strike the US mainland since Hurricane Katrina has also drawn attention for its potential disruptions to the tech industry. Destruction from Hurricane Helene is threatening one of the industry’s major supply chains – a North Carolina mining town that supplies high-purity quartz crucial for manufacturing the chips found in smartphones and data centres worldwide.

The mining town of Spruce Pine is among the many US communities impacted by Hurricane Helene, which killed more than 200 people in multiple states, displaced thousands and left more than a million homes and businesses without power. The storm pushed 900 kilometres inland from the Florida coast and inflicted deadly floods across a wide region, even reaching deep within the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina, where the Spruce Pine quartz mines are located.

Here is what you need to know about how Helene’s ripple effects could impact the tech industry.

Why is high-purity quartz so important?

High-purity quartz is used to make fused-quartz crucibles, cylindrical containers that are key to the chip-manufacturing process because they can endure the high temperatures required to melt silicon. The melting-point temperature for semiconductor-grade polysilicon is around 1425°C (2597°F), and quartz crucibles can typically withstand temperatures of up to 1650°C (3000°F).

In the chip manufacturing process, the fused-quartz crucibles are filled with molten silicon. A silicon seed crystal is dipped into the melted silicon within the spinning crucible so that it can grow into a significantly larger silicon ingot before being gradually drawn out. A fully grown ingot can weigh over 500 kilograms.

Those silicon ingots are then cut into silicon wafers, which in turn can be imprinted with the transistor patterns that form the foundation of modern computer chips.

Where does high-purity quartz come from?

The natural deposits of quartz found in Spruce Pine originated when North America and Africa collided to form the supercontinent Pangaea about 300 million years ago. That process created the Appalachian mountains and also forced part of Earth’s oceanic crust to sink beneath North America, where the intense heat and pressure near the planet’s mantle melted ocean sediment and rock.

The resulting lava slowly cooled over time to form pegmatite rock deposits containing large mineral crystals – including high-purity quartz. These pegmatite formations eventually became more accessible near the surface because of more geological upheaval and weathering.

How did Hurricane Helene impact quartz mining operations?

The Spruce Pine mining district currently has quartz mining and refining operations owned by Belgium-based Sibelco and Norway-based The Quartz Corp. Both companies shut down operations on 26 September and have not yet said when they might restart.

The companies say they have confirmed the safety of their employees and contractors in the area – and they described relatively minimal direct damage to their facilities.

“The initial assessment indicates that our operating facilities in the Spruce Pine region have only sustained minor damage,” said Sibelco in a 3 October statement. “Our dedicated teams are on-site, conducting cleanup and repair activities to restart operations as soon as we can.”

Hurricane Helene caused record flooding and damage
Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images

“We have been able to conduct the first visual inspections of our plants and it would appear that damage is mostly concentrated around ancillary units,” said The Quartz Corp in a statement on 2 October. But the company also cautioned that resumption of mining operations “will also depend on the rebuilding of local infrastructure” – many of the roads in the area were closed and damaged in the immediate wake of the storm.

Similarly, Sibelco referenced power outages from the storm as one challenge. “Restoring power remains crucial to resuming our operations,” said the company in its statement. “The repair of power lines leading to our plants has progressed significantly.”

The Quartz Corp also described having stockpiles of quartz in Norway that could be used in ongoing purification processing operations, along with additional “safety stocks of finished products” that could avoid any critical shortages for customers – including semiconductor manufacturers – in the short or medium term.

Will Helene disrupt the supply of semiconductors?

Major semiconductor manufacturers have said that they currently do not expect disruptions to their operations in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

TSMC, a Taiwanese company that is the world’s leading chip maker, described having “diverse global suppliers” to draw upon. “Through an effective risk management system and close partnerships with suppliers, we currently do not anticipate any significant impact on the company’s operations,” says a TSMC spokesperson. “We will keep monitoring the situation closely.”

Samsung Electronics, which ranks as the second largest chip maker and is headquartered in South Korea, told New Scientist that the company’s operations were not affected.

GlobalFoundries, the largest semiconductor manufacturer based in the US, described itself as having the “flexibility to leverage alternative sources for key supplies” with chip-making facilities on three continents. “We are in contact with our global suppliers and do not expect any disruption to our supply of quartz due to Hurricane Helene,” says a GlobalFoundries spokesperson.

Companies that produce raw silicon wafers currently have wafer stockpiles sufficient to last anywhere from three to eight months, said Dylan Patel at SemiAnalysis, an independent research firm, in a social media post.

Are there alternative sources of quartz for the global semiconductor industry?

Spruce Pine “has a near unique combination of purity, availability and price,” wrote Ed Conway, a journalist at Sky News and author of Material World, in a Substack post. But he also pointed to other high-purity quartz mines in China, Russia and Brazil.

Natural high-purity quartz deposits are “scarce”, but companies can use purification methods if needed or even synthetically produce pure quartz, said Patel. He also pointed to the company Ferroglobe, which acquired a high-purity quartz mine in South Carolina in October 2023. A company press release projected that mining operations could begin in the second half of 2024.

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Servers computers

0814 Rack of blade computer servers with storage or database within a datacenter ppt Slides

Published

18 mins ago

October 5, 2024

NewsAdmin

0814 Rack of blade computer servers with storage or database within a datacenter ppt Slides

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Technology

Ben Horowitz says he’ll donate to Kamala Harris after all

Published

21 mins ago

October 5, 2024

NewsAdmin

Ben Horowitz says he’ll donate to Kamala Harris after all

“As I mentioned before, Felicia and I have known Vice President Harris for over 10 years and she has been a great friend to both of us during that time,” Horowitz wrote in an email to his venture capital firm obtained by Axios. “As a result of our friendship, Felicia and I will be making a significant donation to entities who support the Harris Walz campaign.”

“Like, how do you walk that back?”

I… listen. Two things. First, one of the most striking things about the podcast Horowitz made with his a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen was how focused both men were on who’d take their meetings. Their political commitments, in many respects, boiled down to who would spend face time with them. Near the end of the podcast, Horowitz told what was (I think?) supposed to be a heartwarming story about hanging out with Trump’s grandkids — and how his reaction to hearing about the assassination attempt on Trump was, “Oh my god, Grandpa just got shot.”

So, you know, the whole thing where Harris has been “a great friend” to both Horowitz and his wife checks out as a political position for him. In some respects, I get it. I, too, want to see my friends succeed!

But second, that crucial Trump endorsement was made before Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race in favor of Harris, and before the enormous outpouring of support for the new Democratic candidate. That meant a16z had already sacrificed any leverage it might have with a Harris administration — and a candidate who made Trump look like less of a sure winner. In the case of a Harris win, these boys were looking at an entire four years without important meetings, and we already know they view that as a dreadful tragedy for the entire nation.

In order to regain any possibility of leverage in a potentially Democrat-led government, someone was going to have to eat humble pie, and it sure as shit wasn’t going to be Andreessen. Horowitz, whose support for Trump was termed a “Maga U-turn” by The San Francisco Standard, has a history of donating to progressive causes; Harris, then a senator, was even a guest at a Horowitz backyard barbecue in 2018.

“I’m just wondering what they’re gonna do when Kamala wins,” one founder told The San Francisco Standard of the a16z Trump endorsement. “Like, how do you walk that back?”

Well, I guess we know now. Horowitz’s email says that he’s had several conversations with Harris and her team — crucial to note here that he got to the candidate herself, given that access is apparently one of Horowitz’s main political concerns. And so while Horowitz still thinks President Joe Biden is no-good and very bad, he is “encouraged by my belief” in Harris to do good for tech, despite the fact that she has not yet staked out any policy positions.

Harris has sort of made overtures on what Horowitz termed “probably the most emotional topic” in the election: crypto. One of her campaign aides has said, “She’s going to support policies that ensure that emerging technologies and that sort of industry can continue to grow,” in response to a question about crypto.

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Technology

NYT Connections today — hints and answers for Saturday, October 5 (game #482)

Published

42 mins ago

October 5, 2024

NewsAdmin

NYT Connections homescreen on a phone, on a purple background

Good morning! Let’s play Connections, the NYT’s clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need clues.

What should you do once you’ve finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I’ve also got daily Wordle hints and answers, Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.

Your Connections expert

Marc McLaren

NYT Connections today (game #482) – today’s words

NYT Connections hints for game 482 on a purple background

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today’s NYT Connections words are…

JACUZZI
BIKINI
HANGER
X-RAY
Q-TIP
TOOTHBRUSH
G-STRING
CHAPSTICK
T-BONE
XEROX
HIPSTER
SKIRT
DRILL
FILET
SINK
THONG

NYT Connections today (game #482) – hint #1 – group hints

What are some clues for today’s NYT Connections groups?

Yellow: Beef bits
Green: Hidden clothing
Blue: Open wide!
Purple: Remember the capital letter…

Need more clues?

We’re firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today’s NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #482) – hint #2 – group answers

What are the answers for today’s NYT Connections groups?

YELLOW: STEAK CUTS
GREEN: KINDS OF UNDERWEAR
BLUE: INVOLVED IN A DENTIST VISIT
PURPLE: BRANDS THAT HAVE BECOME GENERIC TERMS

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Connections today (game #482) – the answers

NYT Connections answers for game 482 on a purple background

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today’s Connections, game #482, are…

YELLOW: STEAK CUTS FILET, HANGER, SKIRT, T-BONE
GREEN: KINDS OF UNDERWEAR BIKINI, G-STRING, HIPSTER, THONG
BLUE: INVOLVED IN A DENTIST VISIT DRILL, SINK, TOOTHBRUSH, X-RAY
PURPLE: BRANDS THAT HAVE BECOME GENERIC TERMS CHAPSTICK, JACUZZI, Q-TIP, XEROX

My rating: Hard
My score: 3 mistakes

Phew! I cut this one close, losing all three guesses before I’d solved a single connection, but managing to complete the game with no further mistakes. And it is undeniably a hard one. Even yellow – supposedly the easiest group – featured four answers of which I only knew two. The connection was STEAK CUTS, and I got FILET and T-BONE, but hadn’t really heard of HANGER and was only vaguely aware of SKIRT. Ditto KINDS OF UNDERWEAR – BIKINI, G-STRING and THONG were OK, but I do not really know what a HIPSTER is.

Fortunately I managed to get blue and purple first, after a lot of thought, and scraped home with no room for further error.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday’s NYT Connections answers (Friday, 4 October, game #481)

YELLOW: CONCAVITY DENT, DIMPLE, DING, DIVOT
GREEN: SMALL AMOUNT DAB, DASH, DOLLOP, DROP
BLUE: DISNEY CHARACTERS DAISY, DALE, DOC, DORY
PURPLE: ___ DATE DELIVERY, DINNER, DREAM, DUE

What is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.

On the plus side, you don’t technically need to solve the final one, as you’ll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What’s more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.

It’s a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.

It’s playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

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Servers computers

HOW MUCH DOES A USED SERVER RACK COST

Published

54 mins ago

October 5, 2024

NewsAdmin

You might have been looking for a used server rack to purchase, but you may not know how much does a used server rack cost. The price for used server racks will depend largely on the size of your business and what you need them for. In this blog post, we’ll give you the rundown of what you need to know about purchasing a used server rack for you or your company so that you get exactly what you want without any surprises.

Learn more about how to securely and successfully sell your new and used surplus tape media by clicking the links below.

o How can I safely sell my used data tapes?
https://webuyusedtape.net/sell-tape-media/

o Should we be concerned with data leaks from LTO tapes?
https://webuyusedtape.net/2020/12/17/setup-an-airgap-using-lto-tape/

o How can we securely destroy the data on our data tapes?
https://webuyusedtape.net/services/data-destruction/

o What is a data destruction certificate?
https://webuyusedtape.net/2021/07/06/what-is-certificate-of-data-destruction/

o Are your processes compliant for tape media data destruction?
https://webuyusedtape.net/services/compliance/

o How are data tapes tracked during the data eradication process?
https://webuyusedtape.net/2021/04/20/volser-barcode-labeling-overview/

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Technology

The best free movies on YouTube right now (October 2024)

Published

1 hour ago

October 5, 2024

NewsAdmin

The best free movies on YouTube right now (October 2024)

With cord-cutting at an all-time high, streaming services have become more important. Netflix, Max, Amazon, Prime Video, and Hulu offer countless hours of movies to watch with the push of a button. However, these services continue to raise prices, which doesn’t bode well for bank accounts.

YouTube, however, offers a wide selection of free movies. The movies are ad-supported, but that’s a fair trade-off compared to other streamers that cost north of $10 a month. If this is your first time using YouTube to watch movies, we have curated a special guide with recommendations for various genres. Check out our selections below.

Looking for more stuff you can watch for free? Check out our guides to the best free shows on YouTube and the best sites for watching free movies online. If you’re willing to pay, read these guides on the best new movies to stream and the best movies on Netflix.