On February 26 Showa Denko announced that it would start to produce high-purity N2O in Korea so as to reinforce the supply system of the chemical there. Concluding a consignment agreement with Korean industrial gas manufacturer Dooam Industrial (headquartered in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province, led by President Park Yup with a capital of 15 million yen), Showa Denko will jointly set up a purifying plant in the premises of the said local company located near Seoul within 2014 and will start selling the product from 2015.

Dooam is an industrial gas manufacturer with an annual turnover of 420 million yen, who is also selling N2O for medical use. The amount of investment has not been unveiled yet, but the annual production capacity is 600 tons. With this investment DSK group’s total supply capacity will be raised to 1,800 tons including Kawasaki Operation’s capacity of 1,200 tons.

High-purity N2O is used to form oxidizing films for insulation in the CVD process to produce semiconductors. In the East Asian countries including mainly China and Korea, there is a positive trend of expanding plants for the chemical, and the application of the chemical to the semiconductor-related demand is growing at a pace of 10 to 15%. In addition, the scope of application is also expanding as a substantial volume of N2O is consumed as an inert gas for annealing in the forming process of oxidized films to produce polysilicon liquid crystal at a low temperature or oxidized semiconductor “IGZO” for smartphones.

Showa Denko is planning to enhance profitability in the segment of chemical products including semiconductor processing specialty gases as part of the on-going medium-term management plan “PEGASUS Phase II”. As reported in our issue No. 786, in January Showa Denko doubled the production capacity of high-purity ammonia from 1,000 tons to 2,000 tons in China. Since then much attention has been paid to the business development of Showa Denko.