Samsung, SK Hynix step up CO₂ buying as supplies tighten

The shortage of ultra-high-purity CO₂ is escalating from a support-material hiccup into a genuine bottleneck for advanced nodes. At sub-3nm logic and HBM3E production, CO₂ is critical for post-litho cleaning and chamber purging—any purity lapse directly erodes yield. Samsung and SK Hynix’s scramble reveals Korea’s chronic underinvestment in localized gas infrastructure. With the EU’s CBAM and U.S. IRA inflating purification costs globally, and geopolitical disruptions rattling natural gas feedstocks, compliance burdens may squeeze out smaller foundries. TSMC, leveraging its closed-loop gas recovery, holds a temporary edge—but prolonged scarcity could accelerate equipment vendors’ shift toward dry-cleaning alternatives. Within 18 months, gas security will dictate fab location decisions and reshape bargaining power within the U.S.-Japan-South Korea semiconductor alliance.