Good Progress on Sustainability, but Challenges are Complex

By Pete Singer, Editor-in-Chief

The semiconductor industry continues to make good progress on sustainability issues. Late last year and earlier this year, major commitments to sustainability were made by TSMC, Intel, Micron, Applied Materials, Lam and many others. 

In September, TSMC announced a commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050. The Company also published its Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Report.

In April, Intel Corp. announced plans to further reduce its direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and develop more sustainable technology solutions. The company pledged to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in its global operations by 2040, to increase the energy efficiency and lower the carbon footprint of Intel products and platforms with specific goals, and to work with customers and industry partners to create solutions that lower the greenhouse gas footprint of the entire technology ecosystem.

Greenhouse gas emissions are often categorized into three groups or ‘Scopes’ by the most widely-used international accounting tool, the GHG (Greenhouse Gas) Protocol. Scope 1 covers direct emissions from owned or controlled sources. Scope 2 covers indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity and other resources consumed by the reporting company. Scope 3 includes all other indirect emissions that occur in a company’s value chain. 

In May, Micron announced new targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of the company’s overall sustainability strategy outlined in its annual sustainability report. The new commitments put Micron on a path to achieve net-zero emissions from its global operations (scope 1) and purchased energy use (scope 2) by 2050. 

In addition to these new long-term commitments, Micron has also set new shorter-term, time-bound targets. By 2030, Micron aims to reduce scope 1 greenhouse gas emissions across its own operations by 42% against its 2020 baseline. Through this combination of shorter-term targets and long-term commitments, Micron seeks to align its goals to the objective of international agreements on climate change to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees C. Such “science-based” targets provide companies with a clearly-defined path to reduce emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals.

This week, sustainability is also a focal point. The Global Sustainability Summit will debut on Day 2 (Wednesday) at SEMICON West 2022 “to help drive the collaboration necessary for the semiconductor industry to reduce its carbon footprint.” Co-hosted by SEMI and McKinsey & Company, the summit comes as semiconductor ecosystem companies are increasingly committing to sustainability targets. Keynote speakers will include execs from IBM, Intel, TSMC, ASML and EMD, and a fireside chat with Vicki Hollub, President and CEO, Occidental Petroleum Corporation.

Complexity of operations

Semiconductor manufacturing is an extremely complex operation – many say the most complex manufacturing process in the world – using massive amounts of power and water, as well as a variety of materials that are potentially hazardous/toxic to people and the environment, including greenhouse gases (GHG). As the semiconductor industry grows – many believe it will need to double in capacity in the next few years to meet demand– these problems only worsen. “The semiconductor industry is a significant contributor to power usage and environmental impact,” said Kate Wilson, President of Edwards Vacuum. “It’s only increasing at the rate that semiconductors are growing.”

Sustainability objectives include the reduction of power and water consumption during the manufacturing operation, and minimizing the impact of material use on the environment. The latter can be achieved by reducing the consumption of materials, recycling when possible, and through the use of abatement technologies which control the emission of byproducts into the atmosphere to meet well-defined industry and government standards. 

The greatest potential for immediate reductions in GHG emissions in semiconductor manufacturing lies in reducing the energy used by manufacturing equipment. This is the focus of a SEMI Standard, S23. The SEMI S23 guidelines describe a methodology for semiconductor equipment manufacturers and the device manufacturers who use their products to evaluate the energy used by their equipment and their manufacturing processes (See “SEMI’s S23 Standard – Save Energy, Save Money, Save the Planet,” Chris Jones of Edwards Vacuum in the June issue of Semiconductor Digest, p. 14). 

SEMI S23 allows device manufacturers to compare systems and consider energy efficiency in their equipment selection process, thus incentivizing equipment manufacturers to improve the efficiency of their products. And it provides an objective basis for equipment manufacturers to evaluate the success of their efforts to reduce energy consumption and promote that progress in the marketplace.

Water recycling is commonplace, particularly in areas such as Arizona where water is limited. The recycling/reuse of other materials is trickier and may require new technologies and new approaches, such as segregating and treating certain waste streams. “It’s not simple, but compared to what semiconductors do, they’re not unsolvable issues,” Wilson said. She added that once these new technologies are developed, they should be shared industrywide for the sake of sustainability. 

In practice, given the complexity and changing nature of the manufacturing process, managing how new technologies are applied based on sustainability goals is not always straightforward – especially when one considers the sources of electricity in various parts of the world. For example, in gas abatement approaches (a technology offered by Edwards), a fuel is often used to essentially “burn” materials to create more desirable byproducts. Would it be better to use electricity instead of fuel? “Where does electricity come from? How do you count it if somebody’s paid for renewable energy credits, where the overall country has a very poor percentage of renewables in supply and actually doesn’t have very clean electricity?” Wilson asks. “It’s not necessarily fixing the problem for that country as a whole.”

End use complexity

Another aspect of optimizing sustainability in the semiconductor industry is understanding the power consumption of semiconductors themselves – and trying to improve that. Today, data centers represent approximately 1% of the global electricity demand and account for about 0.3% of global carbon emissions. 

Aside from developing semiconductors that consume less power, research shows that immersion cooling with energy reuse could reduce carbon emissions by 45% compared to traditional data center usage. To this end, Intel recently unveiled plans to invest more than $700 million for a 200,000-square-foot, state-of-the art research and development mega lab focused on innovative data center technologies and addressing areas such as heating, cooling and water usage (see illustration). Additionally, Intel introduced the technology industry’s first open intellectual property (open IP) immersion liquid cooling solution and reference design. 

Complexity of collaboration

“The impact of climate change is an urgent global threat. Protecting our planet demands immediate action and fresh thinking about how the world operates,” said Pat Gelsinger, Intel chief executive officer when making the Intel announcement in April. “Intel is in a unique position to make a difference not only in our own operations, but in a way that makes it easier for customers, partners and our whole value chain to take meaningful action too.”

Taking such meaningful action is certain to be a hot topic at SEMICON West this week. The Sustainability Summit is a great start, sure to inspire more collaboration. “I’ve seen the commitments that people have made,” said Wilson. “Everybody is onboard and there are real things happening. The challenge is to make sure that there is coordination of what those real things are to get an industrywide improvement. We’re not quite there yet on that,” she said. “Let’s make sure we pick the right things to do, and all work together and collaborate to do that as an industry.”