Three new polishing recipes from Seoul: the invisible chemistry that makes chips possible

Every computer chip is polished into existence — wafers must be flattened and cleaned to near-atomic smoothness, again and again. In Seoul, Ace nanochem, a specialist in colloidal silica (tiny glass particles suspended in liquid, the workhorse of chip polishing) led by chief executive Jonghoon Lee, has completed three new materials: a slurry for polishing polysilicon in power devices, a surface-treatment solution that keeps bare wafers clean after polishing, and a slurry for glass through-vias — the vertical connections in advanced chip packaging. The company, which supplies makers including SK hynix and Amkor and holds the government's $10 Million Export Tower award, now plans deeper collaboration with manufacturers in Taiwan and Japan.

SDG 9 · Industry, innovation and infrastructure — Mechanism: tech innovation