June 28, Critini Research analyst Jukan cited industry sources saying that procurement of high-purity carbon dioxide used in advanced semiconductor processes has flashed warning signals. The root of the problem is not the demand side, but a sharp drop in upstream raw material CO2 output, as refinery and petrochemical plant operating rates decline, leading to a significant reduction in CO2 byproduct output. Semiconductor manufacturers and suppliers typically each hold about two weeks of inventory, totaling about one month's supply, but the industry generally believes that current inventory has fallen below this red line.

Industry data shows that Samsung Electronics consumes about 1,800 to 2,000 tons of high-purity CO2 per month, while SK Hynix consumes about 600 to 700 tons per month. Although production at both companies has not been interrupted, the inventory buffer is continuously shrinking, and procurement efforts have significantly increased. Even with price increases, it is difficult to lock in additional supply in a short time, because the shortage of upstream raw materials constitutes a physical hard constraint. The price of liquefied CO2 has risen by about 20% from the beginning of the year, and the industry expects the supply tightness to continue until the end of the year. Major high-purity CO2 suppliers in South Korea include Taekyung Chemical, Sundo Chemical, Dongkwang Chemical, and SK Air Plus, with Taekyung Chemical recognized as the industry leader.

High-purity CO2 is widely used in the supercritical cleaning process for advanced manufacturing—in the supercritical state, CO2 has both liquid-like dissolving power and gas-like permeability, enabling it to penetrate extremely fine pattern gaps to remove residues and contaminants, which is critical for advanced chips with narrow pattern spacing and high step height differences. CO2 raw material comes from byproducts of refining, petrochemical, and hydrogen production processes. The instability in crude oil supply and demand caused by the US-Iran conflict and the situation in the Middle East has led to a decline in operating rates of domestic petrochemical plants, directly transmitting to the semiconductor materials sector. As a materials expert stated: "After helium, anhydrous hydrogen fluoride, and PGMEA, CO2 has also encountered problems. The risk of Middle East crude oil is repeatedly spilling over into the semiconductor materials field, meaning that the material supply chain is deeply intertwined with refining and petrochemical byproducts."
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