Japanese companies Mitsubishi Materials issued a press release on 9th, Jan that its Yokkaichi factory was blasted in 13:05 9th (GMT +8), and the explosion has killed five people, 12 were injured.

The factory mainly produces silicon wafers named as “polysilicon”, according to Mitsubishi Materials said it is still unclear that what impact will happen to the customer. The annual polysilicon production capacity of this plant is 2,800 tons, 70% of the products supply to the world’s second largest silicon wafer manufacturer SUMCO.

President Hiroshi Yao (right), apologizes for the explosion on 11th, Jan

Mitsubishi Materials noted that parts of Yokkaichi factory production line will stop production since the 10th, due to the blast site is away from the production line, there is only slight damage to the equipments.

SUMCO refused to respond impact of this event by reason of being collecting information. The core plants of SUMCO located in Saga Prefecture and other places still have lots of polysilicon inventory, besides Mitsubishi Materials, SUMCO also purchases from Osaka Titanium Technologies and other domestic and abroad companies, so the explosion have limited impact on the automotive / smartphone semiconductor production.