Air Liquide starts up molybdenum plant in South Korea to support semiconductor sector

Industrial gases firm Air Liquide has started up a new molybdenum plant in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. This manufacturing plant, the largest in the world, will supply leading semiconductor customers with its breakthrough advanced materials offer Subleem.

It includes a portfolio of ultra-high purity molybdenum molecules and what it says is its first-of-its-kind proprietary distribution systems. With this strategic investment, Air Liquide confirms its technological leadership by being the first to supply molybdenum solutions to its customers in large volumes, it adds.

Subleem offer has been developed and qualified in close collaboration with semiconductor chips manufacturers. This offering includes a comprehensive portfolio of ultra-high purity solid molecules and first-of-its-kind proprietary distribution systems, supporting the semiconductor industry’s major upcoming shift towards molybdenum.

Emerging as a promising replacement for the traditional chip manufacturing material tungsten, the molybdenum “revolution” enables the next generations of advanced memory and logic chips driven by AI applications.

In addition to this new high-volume manufacturing plant in South Korea, currently supplying Subleem to two early adopters of molybdenum, Air Liquide already has a production unit in operation since 2023 in Japan and will open another manufacturing plant in the US by the end of 2025 to support the upcoming wave of demand.