On June 3, the Solar Applied Materials Technology Company (SAMT), which has a history of more than 40 years, has entered the supply chain of chip foundry TSMC, and supplies sputtering targets to the latter.
The news that SAMT entered TSMC's supply chain was disclosed by sources in the industry chain. The source said that SAMT has begun to supply TSMC with sputtering targets for front-end thin film processing.
Sputtering targets are indispensable in semiconductor processing. According to data from the International Semiconductor Industry Association, sputtering materials account for 3% of the cost of materials for semiconductor manufacturing.
SAMT, which entered the supply chain of TSMC, was established in 1978. Their sputtering targets are mainly used in three fields, namely optical disc and hard disk manufacturing, LCD and LED panel production, and semiconductor processing manufacturing. In terms of aspects, SAMT occupies about 30% of the global share, and the share of panel sputtering targets is about 5%.
The president of SAMT revealed that by recycling industrial waste, they can be reprocessed into gold with a purity of 5N (99.999%) and mixed with virgin gold to make semiconductor-grade sputtering targets.