Dow Corning

Last updated
Dow Corning Corporation
Company type Joint Venture
Industry Manufacturing Research & Development
Founded1943
Headquarters Midland, Michigan
Key people
Mauro Gregorio, CEO & President
ProductsSpeciality chemicals, silicon derived polymers
Revenue$6.12 billion (2012) [1]
Number of employees
12,000 [2]
Parent The Dow Chemical Company & Corning Inc
Website www.dowcorning.com

Dow Corning Corporation, [3] [4] was an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States, and was originally established as a joint venture between The Dow Chemical Company and Corning Incorporated. In 2016, Dow bought out Corning, making Dow Corning a 100% Dow subsidiary. After a brief existence as a DowDuPont-owned company, Dow spun out from DowDuPont on April 1, 2019. The new company, Dow Silicones Corporation, which is wholly owned by Dow, specializes in silicone and silicon-based technology, and is the largest silicone product producer in the world.

Contents

History

Dow Corning, Bay City Dow Corning, Bay City.jpg
Dow Corning, Bay City

Dow Corning was formally established in 1943 as a joint venture between the American conglomerates Dow Chemical and Corning Glass to explore the potential of silicone and was a manufacturer of products for use by the U.S. military in World War II. The company began operating its first plant, in Midland, MI, in 1945. Dr. E. C. Sullivan was named president, and Dr. William R. Collings was named general manager in 1943. Dr. Collings later became president from 1954 until 1962. [5] It expanded into Canada and Europe in 1948, and into South America and Japan in 1961. [5]

A large, majority-owned subsidiary of Dow Corning Corporation is the Hemlock Semiconductor Corporation. [6] It is one of the world's largest producers of high-purity polycrystalline silicon, which is sold in varying purity grades for use in both semiconductor silicon wafer manufacture and photovoltaics applications as solar cells. [5]

On November 13, 2014, The Dow Chemical Company's former CEO Andrew N. Liveris revealed in a presentation to investors that Corning Incorporated intended to exit the joint venture of 71 years, citing other priorities. [7] Following the December 11, 2015 announcement that it would merge with DuPont, Dow also announced on the same day that it had reached a deal to acquire Corning's stake in Dow Corning in exchange for $4.8 billion in cash and Corning gaining a roughly 40% stake in Hemlock Semiconductor Corporation. Dow Chemical assumed full ownership of Dow Corning on June 1, 2016. [8] [9] The company changed its name to Dow Silicones Corporation in 2018.

Products

Dow Corning marketed over 7000 products, including various sealants, adhesives, rubbers, lubricants, silicon oils and solvents. Around 2,100 of these are available through the Dow Corning online-only distributor Xiameter, including fluids, gels, resins. The range of industries targeted by Dow Corning products spans from electronics and automotive to construction, healthcare and others. In recent years, the company has expanded production of solar cells, particularly through its majority stake in Hemlock Semiconductor Corporation, which accounts for a polysilicon franchise worth over $1 billion. [10] In 2011, then-CTO Gregg Zank explained that the company tries to focus its product development on societal “megatrends” (e.g. energy scarcity and urbanization). [11]

Problems with breast implants

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, class-action lawsuits [12] brought by tens of thousands of plaintiffs claimed that Dow Corning's silicone breast implants caused systemic health problems. The claims first centered on breast cancer and then migrated to a range of autoimmune diseases, including lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and various neurological problems. This led to numerous lawsuits beginning in 1984 and culminating in a 1998 $3.2 Billion class action settlement. [13] As a result, Dow Corning was in bankruptcy protection for nine years, ending in June 2004 [14] during which time it largely withdrew from clinical markets. [15]

Although a number of independent reviews, including the Institute of Medicine in the United States, subsequently indicated that silicone breast implants do not cause breast cancers or any identifiable systemic diseases, [16] [17] on 21 March 2017, the FDA issued a statement indicating that women with breast implants have a "very low but increased risk" [18] of getting a rare form of cancer called anaplastic large-cell lymphoma (ALCL). [18] The cancer is associated with nine deaths, the FDA said. [19] These findings have caused an uptick in breast implant removal surgeries.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dow Chemical Company</span> American chemical company

The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company is among the three largest chemical producers in the world. It is the operating subsidiary of Dow Inc., a publicly traded holding company incorporated under Delaware law.

Applied Materials, Inc. is an American corporation that supplies equipment, services and software for the manufacture of semiconductor chips for electronics, flat panel displays for computers, smartphones, televisions, and solar products. The company also supplies equipment to produce coatings for flexible electronics, packaging and other applications. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and is the second largest supplier of semiconductor equipment in the world based on revenue behind asml of Netherlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siltronic</span> Silicon wafer manufacturer

Siltronic AG is a manufacturer of wafers made of hyperpure silicon, the basis for modern micro- and nanotechnology. The Munich-based company is one of the world's leading manufacturers of wafers for the semiconductor industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lam Research</span> American semiconductor equipment company

Lam Research Corporation is an American supplier of wafer-fabrication equipment and related services to the semiconductor industry. Its products are used primarily in front-end wafer processing, which involves the steps that create the active components of semiconductor devices and their wiring (interconnects). The company also builds equipment for back-end wafer-level packaging (WLP) and for related manufacturing markets such as for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Breast implant</span> Prosthesis used to change the size, shape, and contour of a persons breast

A breast implant is a prosthesis used to change the size, shape, and contour of a person's breast. In reconstructive plastic surgery, breast implants can be placed to restore a natural looking breast following a mastectomy, to correct congenital defects and deformities of the chest wall or, cosmetically, to enlarge the appearance of the breast through breast augmentation surgery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renewable Energy Corporation</span> Solar power company in Singapore

The Renewable Energy Corporation (REC) is a solar power company with headquarters in Singapore. REC produces silicon materials for photovoltaics (PV) applications and multicrystalline wafers, as well as solar cells and modules. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance New Solar Energy Limited.

Wacker Chemie AG is a German multinational chemical company which was founded in 1914 by Alexander Wacker. The company is controlled by the Wacker family holding more than 50 percent of the shares. The corporation is operating more than 25 production sites in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Bosch Solar Energy AG was a German solar wafer and solar cell manufacturer, based in Erfurt, which specialized in crystalline silicon-based photovoltaic (PV) products, as well as thin-film modules using amorphous silicon and CIGS absorber materials. The company consisted of various divisions for silicon, wafers, solar cells and modules, research and production facilities in Germany and France and plans were made to open a production line in Malaysia. It has been listed on the German stock exchange since 30 September 2005 and on 19 December 2005 its shares were admitted to the TecDAX. The enterprise was founded in 1997 as ErSol Solarstrom GmbH & Co. KG.

ASM is a Dutch headquartered multinational corporation that specializes in the design, manufacturing, sales and service of semiconductor wafer processing equipment for the fabrication of semiconductor devices. ASM's products are used by semiconductor manufacturers in front-end wafer processing in their semiconductor fabrication plants. ASM's technologies include atomic layer deposition, epitaxy, chemical vapor deposition and diffusion.

SunEdison, Inc. is a renewable energy company headquartered in the U.S. In addition to developing, building, owning, and operating solar power plants and wind energy plants, it also manufactures high purity polysilicon, monocrystalline silicon ingots, silicon wafers, solar modules, solar energy systems, and solar module racking systems. Originally a silicon-wafer manufacturer established in 1959 as the Monsanto Electronic Materials Company, the company was sold by Monsanto in 1989.

Mentor Worldwide LLC is an American company that supplies surgical aesthetics products to plastic surgeons. The company is based in Santa Barbara, California. It produces one of two silicone gel breast implants. Titled MemoryGel, the product was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on November 17, 2006. The other FDA-approved products are developed by competitors Allergan and Sientra. Mentor also produces a range of lipoplasty equipment for liposuction procedures as well as a Niacin-based skincare product line called NIA 24.

James Franklin Hyde was an American chemist and inventor. He has been called the “Father of Silicones” and is credited with the launch of the silicone industry in the 1930s. His most notable contributions include his creation of silicone from silicon compounds and his method of making fused silica, a high-quality glass later used in aeronautics, advanced telecommunications, and computer chips. His work led to the formation of Dow Corning, an alliance between the Dow Chemical Company and Corning Glass Works that was specifically created to produce silicone products.

Nitol SolarGroup Ltd. was a vertically integrated company group based in Usolye-Sibirskoye, Russia. The company had two plants and was intended to produce solar-grade polycrystalline silicon from trichlorsilane by Siemens-process for solar energy applications. The company stopped all activities in 2012, fired all employees, went bankrupt, and closed in 2019. The company's facilities were being dismantled in 2022.

Edward F. Blizzard is a pharmaceutical injury attorney and a founding partner of Blizzard Greenberg, PLLC based in Houston, Texas.

GCL-Poly, founded in 1996, is a subsidiary of Golden Concord Group Limited (GCL), a green energy supplier in China, providing power and heat via cogeneration, incineration and wind power. As of 2009 it was the largest supplier of polysilicon in China, and is also a supplier of electronic wafers for the solar industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SUMCO</span> Japanese Company

SUMCO Corporation is a Japanese semiconductor company, manufacturing silicon wafers for semiconductor manufacturers worldwide. The company was established in 1999 as a joint venture between Mitsubishi Materials Corporation and Sumitomo Metal Industries and as of 2013 is the second largest silicon wafer producer in the world, after Shin-Etsu Handotai, with a market share of 30%.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polycrystalline silicon</span> High purity form of silicon

Polycrystalline silicon, or multicrystalline silicon, also called polysilicon, poly-Si, or mc-Si, is a high purity, polycrystalline form of silicon, used as a raw material by the solar photovoltaic and electronics industry.

Hemlock Semiconductor (HSC) is the largest producer of hyper-pure polysilicon headquartered in the United States. Polycrystalline silicon, also called polysilicon, is a high purity, polycrystalline form of silicon, used as a raw material by the solar photovoltaic and electronics industry.

DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in the development of Delaware and first arose as a major supplier of gunpowder. DuPont developed many polymers such as Vespel, neoprene, nylon, Corian, Teflon, Mylar, Kapton, Kevlar, Zemdrain, M5 fiber, Nomex, Tyvek, Sorona, Corfam and Lycra in the 20th century, and its scientists developed many chemicals, most notably Freon (chlorofluorocarbons), for the refrigerant industry. It also developed synthetic pigments and paints including ChromaFlair.

References

  1. ↑ Dow Corning fast facts Archived 2013-10-21 at the Wayback Machine (June 13, 2013)
  2. ↑ "Five things to know about Michigan-based Dow Corning Corp". 14 November 2014.
  3. ↑ Bhattacharjee, Nivedita (September 12, 2017). "DowDuPont alters post-merger breakup plans amid investor pressure". Reuters.
  4. ↑ "Dowdupont gibt Namen der künftigen drei Unternehmen bekannt". plastverarbeiter.de (in German). March 1, 2018.
  5. 1 2 3 "Michigan-based Dow Corning: Timeline of a global success story" . Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  6. ↑ Robert Westervelt (June 24, 2011). "Dow Corning". Chemical Week . Retrieved 2015-02-10. Dow Corning, a 50–50 jv between Dow Chemical and Corning, is the world's largest silicones producer and has a controlling 62.5% stake in Hemlock Semiconductor (Hemlock, MI), the world's leading producer of polysilicon used in semiconductor and solar wafer production. ...
  7. ↑ Kaskey, Jack (13 November 2014). "Dow Says Corning Wants to Exit 71-Year-Old Venture". Bloomberg News. Bloomberg. Retrieved 16 November 2014.
  8. ↑ "Corning to Swap Stake In Dow Corning For $4.8 Billion, Semiconductor Stake". wsj.com. wsj.com. 11 December 2015. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  9. ↑ "Dow Chemical to Take Full Control of Dow Corning Venture". Bloomberg News. Bloomberg. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  10. ↑ "Dow Corning: Solar, Sustainability Drive Turnaround". IHS Chemical Week Magazine. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  11. ↑ "Innovation in chemicals: An interview with Dow Corning's CEO and CTO". McKinsey’s & Company. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
  12. ↑ independent.co.uk – $2.4bn breast-implant offer, 1997-08-26
  13. ↑ Chronology of silicone breast implants. Frontline
  14. ↑ Reisch, M. (2004). "Out of the Woods". Chemical & Engineering News. 82 (15): 5. doi:10.1021/cen-v082n015.p005.
  15. ↑ Reisch, M. S. (1993). "Dow Corning Moving Back on Track Following Breast Implant Controversy". Chemical & Engineering News. 71 (2): 13–16. doi:10.1021/cen-v071n002.p013.
  16. ↑ Gina Kolata (June 21, 1999). "Panel Confirms No Major Illness Tied to Implants". The New York Times . Retrieved 2015-02-10. An independent panel of 13 scientists convened by the Institute of Medicine at the request of Congress has concluded that silicone breast implants do not cause any major diseases.
  17. ↑ Colas, André; Curtis, Jim (2004). Biomaterials Science, Second Edition: An Introduction to Materials in Medicine (PDF). Elsevier, Academic Press. ISBN   978-0-12-582463-7.
  18. 1 2 "FDA Updates Warning on Link Between Textured Breast Implants and Rare Cancer". BreastCancer.org. 22 March 2017. Archived from the original on 19 January 2018. Retrieved 15 Aug 2018.
  19. ↑ Grady, Denise (21 March 2017). "9 Deaths Are Linked to Rare Cancer From Breast Implants". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 Aug 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.