Hemlock Semiconductor (HSC) is the largest and only producer of hyper-pure

polysilicon Polycrystalline silicon, or multicrystalline silicon, also called polysilicon, poly-Si, or mc-Si, is a high purity, polycrystalline form of silicon, used as a raw material by the solar photovoltaic and electronics industry. Polysilicon is produce ...

headquartered in the United States. Founded in 1961, it is owned by Corning Inc. and Shin-Etsu Handotai and named after

Hemlock, Michigan Hemlock is an unincorporated community in Richland Township, Saginaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also a census-designated place (CDP) for statistical purposes, but without any legal status as an incorporated municipality. The popu ...

, the location of its factory. Its current facilities produce between 30,000 and 35,000 tons of polycrystalline silicon, ranking it among the top five producers worldwide. Polycrystalline silicon, also called polysilicon, is a high purity, polycrystalline form of silicon, used as a raw material by the solar photovoltaic and electronics industry.

Former Tennessee facility

The company expanded with the

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese joint venture partners

Shin-Etsu Chemical is the largest chemical company in Japan, ranked No. 9 in Forbes Global 2000 for chemical sector. Shin-Etsu has the largest global market share for polyvinyl chloride, semiconductor silicon, and photomask substrates. The company was named one ...

and

Mitsubishi Materials , or MMC, is a Japanese company. It is a manufacturer of cement products, copper and aluminum products, cemented carbide tools, and electronic materials. It is one of the core companies of Mitsubishi Group. The company is listed on the Tokyo Sto ...

, for a new $1.2 billion plant opening near

Clarksville, Tennessee Clarksville is the county seat of Montgomery County, Tennessee, United States. It is the fifth-largest city in the state behind Nashville, Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. The city had a population of 166,722 as of the 202 ...

. Though it officially opened in 2012, chemicals were never inventoried and no product was made. The plant was under negotiations in 2011 for a further $3 billion expansion, to keep pace with manufacturing competition from

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. In December 2014, Hemlock Semiconductor announced the permanent closure of the $1.2 billion

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

plant, due to adverse conditions from industry oversupply and ongoing challenges from global trade disputes. Many of the approximately fifty employees in Tennessee were offered employment positions in Michigan at the Hemlock, Michigan site or Dow Corning facilities, and the rest received severance packages. In December 2015,

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

announced that they will buy the facility, and invest more than $600 million to turn it into their 15th datacenter.

End of Dow Corning joint venture

Dow Corning Dow Corning Corporation, was an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. Originally established as a joint venture between The Dow Chemical Company and Corning Incorporated, Dow bought out Corning and ...

announced that June 1, 2016 would be "day one" such that

Dow Chemical Company The Dow Chemical Company, officially Dow Inc., is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company is among the three largest chemical producers in the world. Dow manufactures plastic ...

will assume 100% ownership of the Dow Corning Corporation, concluding the 73-year joint venture between Dow Chemical and Corning Inc. Hemlock Semiconductor continues as an independently run entity with two shareholders: Corning Inc. owns 80.5%, and Shin-Etsu Chemical owns 19.5%.

Acquisitions

In September 2020, Hemlock announced they had acquired

DuPont DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...

’s

trichlorosilane Trichlorosilane is an inorganic compound with the formula HCl3Si. It is a colourless, volatile liquid. Purified trichlorosilane is the principal precursor to ultrapure silicon in the semiconductor industry. In water, it rapidly decomposes to pr ...

(TCS) business, which includes the TCS manufacturing facility in

Midland, Michigan Midland is a city in and the county seat of Midland County, Michigan. The city's population was 42,547 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Midland Micropolitan Statistical Area, part of the larger Saginaw-Midland-Bay City Comb ...

References

{{Authority control Semiconductor companies of the United States Silicon wafer producers Manufacturing companies based in Michigan Corning Inc. Dow Chemical Company Science and technology in Michigan Economy of Clarksville, Tennessee Manufacturing companies established in 1961 1961 establishments in Michigan Defunct manufacturing companies based in Tennessee

Former Tennessee facility

End of Dow Corning joint venture

Acquisitions

See also

References