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Specialty/electronic gases
What it is
Ultra-high-purity gases and gas mixtures for semiconductor fabrication, display manufacture, medical use and laboratories - nitrogen trifluoride, silane, high-purity argon and others, specified to parts-per-billion impurity levels
India has historically imported most of its electronic gas requirement
Impact on industries
- Highest realisation in the gas portfolio by a wide margin, priced on purity and qualification rather than volume
- India's OSAT and fab build-out creates a domestic customer base for electronic gases where essentially none existed
- Qualification into a semiconductor line is extremely sticky, since a purity failure can scrap an entire wafer lot
- Requires purification, analytical and handling capability well beyond industrial gas production, so entry is technology-gated
- Volumes are small relative to tonnage gases, so it lifts blended margin more than revenue