“The market for specialty gas is headed for its largest change in structure ever. Production of large thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels is greatly decreasing. Furthermore, thin film silicon solar cells, which had been anticipated as the next area of demand, are not turning out like that at all. Silane (SiH4), nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), and ammonia (NH3) have all fallen into surpluses in terms of supply. In contrast, the demand for small TFT-LCD panels for use with smartphones and the related memory semiconductors is doing well. It is a fact, however, that this demand has not gone so far as to make up for the falling off of the demand.

Amidst all of this, signs of change are steadily appearing. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is growing for use with metal oxide semiconductors for LCD. Power devices for use with heavy electric machinery are dominated globally by 3 Japanese companies, these being Mitsubishi Electric, Toshiba, and Fuji Electric, with manufacture moving steadily along. If use of silicon carbide and gallium nitride in processes actually goes into full swing, it is quite certain that N2O will be used for new applications as well.

New electronics technology originating in Japan are coming to the fore such as Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM) which makes all semiconductors nonvolatile and minimal fabs which undertake optimum production by using half inch size wafers. The key here is to optimize the specialty gas. Put in other words, the time when people could look for an expansion of demand in the Japanese market has come to an end.”