Same specification, every plant, every batch: consistency is the new standard of excellence
A grain of salt lost on a soccer field: that is the order of magnitude used to describe the detection threshold for metallic impurities in certain chemicals intended for the most advanced semiconductor market. The industry already knows how to achieve such a level of precision in lab conditions. What it does not yet know how to guarantee with certainty is that this result will remain consistent from one factory to another, from one continent to another, at all times. Especially given the pressure from the exponential growth in demand for semiconductors and the increasing miniaturization of components.
A purity certificate just isn't enough
Each batch of chemicals comes with a certificate of analysis guaranteeing its concentration, metal contamination, particle content, and stability. All are documented in parts per billion or per trillion, individually audited, and comparable across suppliers. Because at such minute levels, a single invisible contaminant can compromise an entire wafer and cause production output to drop dramatically.
But a certificate of purity documents one thing above all: the performance of that particular batch, at a given moment. What it does not do is guarantee anything - not the ability of the next batch, manufactured in another country six months later, to meet the same specification, and not the ability of a second plant to reproduce it. This is especially significant given that many regions are seeking to build more resilient semiconductor supply chains that are less dependent on a single geographic region.
The method chipmakers now demand from their suppliers
Nevertheless, maintaining consistency in production is no longer theoretical. The industry has a name for it: process transfer, the discipline of replicating an entire manufacturing recipe - equipment, parameters, inputs - so faithfully that a new plant produces statistically indistinguishable output from which it was copied. What began as an internal method for chipmakers has become a requirement they now pass upstream, to everyone who supplies them.
Consistent upstream-integrated manufacturing processes across all worldwide production sites are a crucial asset for semiconductor manufacturers seeking global consistency.
The pressure will only intensify: 2026 already marks the start of mass production for the 2-nm process. And roadmaps are already targeting 1.4 nm by 2028–2029. But future gains will depend just as much on new transistor architectures, new materials, 3D stacking, and the chemicals used to ensure purity as they already do on the degree of the semiconductor node scaling process in itself.
Purity has reached a whole new level
Ten years ago, simply mentioning purity was enough to imply quality. But that is no longer the case. Today, more than a hundred different types of chemical compounds and materials required for semiconductor manufacturing must meet purity standards measured in parts per billion—or even parts per trillion.
Furthermore, this requirement must be sustained at a very high repetition rate. Each wafer undergoes etching and Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) through several hundred processing steps—between 400 and 1,400, depending on the chip’s complexity—over a manufacturing cycle lasting twelve to twenty weeks1. This explains why impurities, even microscopic ones, can accumulate over the course of these numerous repetitions rather than constituting an isolated quality issue.
Zenus® sets the standard for consistency in colloidal ceria. With ultra-light purity, breakthrough performance, and security supply, we hep our customers meet the most demanding requirements of the semiconductors industry.
The list of qualified suppliers is shrinking
As tolerance levels tighten with each new generation of nodes, the margin that once absorbed minor deviations over thousands of cycles has disappeared. A negligible deviation at a given node now becomes critical to performance at the next node. On the most advanced nodes, at 3 nm and 2 nm, tolerances are sometimes measured in just a few angstroms— tenths of a nanometer2.
Industry research also shows that quality issues most often originate with second-tier subcontractors, and rarely with the first-tier suppliers themselves, which shifts the focus of qualification efforts to the entire supply chain3.
The challenge, therefore, is to ensure consistent quality across all production facilities, even as the number of suppliers who have the capacity to keep up with this demanding pace decreases as requirements become more stringent. With the increasing miniaturization of chips and tighter tolerances, the difference between meeting a specification and maintaining it has become the new litmus test for qualification. This is due to the fact that procurement decisions are increasingly based on consistency from batch to batch, traceability, supply security, and the ability to support a new technology node.
Guaranteed Quality from manufacturing site to point of use
As the industry moves toward 2 nm, 1.8 nm, and eventually 1.4 nm processes, tolerance levels are becoming so stringent that product stability during transport and storage is also becoming a crucial competitive advantage. In the semiconductor industry, it is often considered that purity must be guaranteed from the manufacturing site to the point of use. No longer is it enough to guarantee product quality; companies must also ensure they can deliver a product whose characteristics remain unchanged until it is used in the actual fabrication plant4.
Geographic proximity to these "fabs" is therefore a structural constraint rather than a logistical preference. Ultra-pure hydrogen peroxide is among the most reactive products serving this industry: it cannot be air-freighted, and its supply chains are built around capacity sited close to the plants it serves. That proximity cuts lead times, logistical risk and the risk of supply disruption — decisive factors for facilities costing several billion dollars. But it also creates the very problem the industry now has to solve: if every region must be served by a local plant, what guarantees that all of them deliver the same product? Solvay's answer is to run the exact same manufacturing process at its plants in Europe, in the United States, and in Asia5.
Producing standard hydrogen peroxide is commonplace; producing a grade compatible with the most advanced fabs is significantly more complex, as the challenge lies in eliminating trace contaminants—sometimes at the parts-per-billion or even parts-per-trillion level. Our upstream integration is also a way for us to increase consistency in our electronics-grade quality and purity.
Today, Solvay is the world's leading producer of INTEROX® Pico and PicoPlus hydrogen peroxide. The group also offers Zenus®, a colloidal ceria abrasive for CMP applications that ensures new levels of precision.
The New Qualification Criteria for the Semiconductor Industry
Quality alone is therefore no longer enough. The focus is now on consistency—both in terms of location and over time. This is an essential requirement in a strategic industry that is set to experience even greater growth in the coming years. Global installed capacity is projected to increase from 33.4 million wafers per month in 2025 to 35.0 million in 2026 and 36.8 million in 20276.
The latest forecasts7 from the industry organization World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) project a global market value of $1.51 trillion in 2026, representing an exceptional 90% increase compared to 2025. The memory segment alone is expected to grow by approximately 250%, while logic chips are projected to grow by 37%.
This influx is expected to more than triple the demand for chemicals and related materials8 by 2030. Without consistency and continuity, it will be impossible to keep up with this pace.
