Reason Magazine 2014 Quartal 2 Seite 28

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News of the fire quickly reached the commodity market where the price of dynamic random access memory DRAM quickly rose due to the suspected coming shortage of supply The SK Hynix plant prior to the fire was the world s second largest producer of memory chips with an average production rate of 130 000 wafers per month Reports on the fire indicated that about half of the plant s production area was affected either directly by the fire or by con tamination when the power failed causing the environmental control systems to shut down Reports from reinsurers estimate the cost of the fire at approximately US 1 3 billion Production at the facility resumed in a limited capacity in October with full production achieved in January 2014 In the five months it took SK Hynix to recover the price of DRAM rose about 20 percent higher than the seasonally adjusted aver age Unfortunately SK Hynix struggled to capitalize on this price spike due to reduced capacity and lowered contract prices for their existing customers This allowed SK Hynix s major competitors to increase their market share so by January 2014 SK Hynix had lost just under 5 percent market share and realized a fourth quarter drop in FM Global s partnership with MEMC SunEdison over the past four years is a big part of the reason none of the plants has suffered a fire or explosion loss during that time James Ingraham DIRECTOR ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY AND HEALTH SUNEDISON SEPTEMBER 2013 Heavy smoke rising from the SK Hynix facility in Wuxi in eastern China s Jiangsu province after a fire started in a workshop The fire at the giant Chinese factory a facility responsible for nearly one sixth of the world s supply of a key high tech component shows how vulnerable global supply chains can be to an unexpected event The scale of production at the plant or similar plants now means that a fire or strike taking one factory out of action can reverberate around the world PHOTO CREDIT STR AFP Getty Images revenue of approximately 12 percent Large losses such as these are rare and their devastating potential impact to property and profitability can be mitigated FM Global works with our clients to reduce the frequency and severity of fires at their facilities through our dedicated indus try specialist engineers and tools such as FM Global Data Sheet 7 7 Semiconductor Fabrication Facilities In a recent meeting with their FM Global client service team James Ingraham Director Environmental Safety and Health SunEdison stated that he is convinced that FM Global s partner ship with MEMC SunEdison over the past four years is a big part of the reason none of the plants have suffered a fire or explosion loss during that time Some of the major fire hazards related to semiconductor fabrication facilities include combustible process tools plastics in con struction e g ductwork wall panels etc handling and storage of pyrophoric liquids and gases handling and storage of ignitable liquid and flammable gas and reliability of critical services One of the key hazards that may have contributed to the severity of the SK Hynix fire was combustible process tools and ductwork Many process tools are constructed from a variety of plastics including but not limited to fiberglass reinforced plastic FRP polyvi nyl chloride PVC and polypropylene PP Plastics are popular in the semiconductor industry as they are easily cleaned and limit the potential for contamination of the wafers theSCIENCE 28 Reason ISSUE 2 2014