Intel Warns Chip Shortage to Worsen if U.S. Bans Imports of Compound

  • Trade agency is considering barring imports of DuPont slurry
  • Cabot claims Dupont’s Rohm & Haas copied its patented method
A wafer is processed at a semiconductor manufacturing facility.Photographer: Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg
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Intel Corp. is railing against a proposed import ban on a key chipmaking ingredient, saying the move would worsen an already-perilous shortage of semiconductors.

The company is trying to dissuade the U.S. International Trade Commission from halting imports of so-called chemical mechanical planarization slurries that are sold under the name Optiplane. DuPont’s Rohm & Haas unit makes the products in Taiwan and Japan, and they’ve drawn allegations that they infringe technology owned by Illinois-based CMC Materials Inc. The ITC was scheduled to announce its final decision later Thursday but postponed it until Dec. 16. It gave no reason for the one-week delay.