Alpha HPA becoming a critical semiconductor industry supplier

Alpha HPA has announced continuing success in the global semiconductor supply chain, executing three new letters of intent (LOIs) with major international OEMs for the supply of its ultrahigh-purity aluminium products.

Each agreement follows more than a year of rigorous product qualification and testing, confirming the technical performance and reliability of Alpha HPA’s proprietary materials in advanced, high-value semiconductor applications.

New counterparties include a leading US-based global OEM for chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) slurries, a South Korean OEM for alumina fillers in advanced semiconductor packaging, and a Northeast Asian CMP manufacturer.

Alpha HPA Managing Director Rob Williamson said the new LOIs marked a major commercial and technical validation of the company’s proprietary technology and world-class product performance.

“These agreements are a strong endorsement of Alpha HPA’s technology and our product performance at the highest level of semiconductor manufacturing,” he said. “Unlike the resources sector, each LOI in our market follows 12 to 18 months or more of intensive testing and qualification, demonstrating the reliability and performance of our materials in demanding semiconductor processes. This is an important technical tick for our product and a strong signal of trust and confidence from global industry leaders.”

Alpha HPA’s acceleration as a critical supplier is being driven by the capability of its proprietary purification process to deliver ‘zero-alpha radiation’ high-purity alumina. This means Alpha HPA’s alumina is completely free from trace uranium and thorium that can emit alpha radiation particles and cause soft errors in semiconductors. This allows for the use of Alpha HPA’s materials immediately adjacent to high-end semiconductors as thermal filler for heat dissipation, reducing data centre cooling demand and allowing semiconductors to operate with higher capacity with longer lifecycles.

“Alpha HPA believes this capability provides the company a distinct competitive advantage in the fast-growing markets of AI, data centre and power semiconductor technologies, but also cements the company as a supplier that is increasingly critical to delivering the highest-performance and longest-lifecycle semiconductors,” Williamson said. “Demand from the semiconductor sector continues to accelerate, with Alpha HPA advancing negotiations on an additional four end-user LOIs, alongside discussions to expand volumes under three existing agreements related to thermal fillers used in AI servers and other data-centre applications.

“Our customers have now confirmed that Alpha HPA’s product is the lowest alpha-radiation material available, which is vital for advanced-packaging thermal fillers,” he added. “Even trace levels of alpha radiation create soft errors that corrupts data or the logic state of the semiconductor, and we are first in the world to remove these impurities that emit alpha radiation, which end customers are strongly demanding.”

Pricing for Alpha HPA’s materials continues to trend above earlier forecasts, with semiconductor customers prioritising technical excellence over cost, particularly for aluminium trihydrate (ATH) and high-purity alumina (HPA).