The Bromine Chokepoint: How Strife in the Middle East Could Halt Production of the World’s Memory Chips

A hypothetical U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has exposed a critical vulnerability in the global semiconductor memory supply chain centered on bromine. Sourced almost exclusively from Israel for South Korean chipmakers, bromine is an irreplaceable component for producing DRAM and NAND memory chips. Iranian missile strikes on Israel's Negev region threaten the co-located extraction and conversion facilities, and there is no alternative global capacity to meet demand if this supply is disrupted. A halt in Israeli bromine production would rapidly cascade into a global shortage of memory chips, impacting everything from consumer electronics to advanced AI and military systems.