428
Anon discovers magic and its uses
(slrpnk.net)
This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
Be warned:
If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.
What’s extremely rare about silicon?
Silicon itself is certainly not rare (even if the purification process is somewhat exigent on the feedstock), but modern chips uses a lot of rare-ish elements in their makeup (hafnium for mosfet gates, gold for chip/package connexion, etc...).
"Extremely rare rocks" is not the same thing as "extremely rare minerals" and is definitely not the same thing as "extremely rare elements."
Purity is a concern.
https://www.techspot.com/news/102377-two-mines-north-carolina-key-suppliers-world-semiconductor.html
But that's more of an economic issue than it is a technical one. It's possible to process the less pure stuff, but it's cheaper to just get the good stuff to start with.
Maybe it's about the stuff that's added to the silicon.