News-in-brief: November 2022

Research and Development

The International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS) 2022 update was published in late September. The full roadmap can be found on the IRDS website, and the efforts of the IRDS Yield Enhancement team is summarized in this UPM 2022 presentation prepared by Slava Libman, FTD Solutions, Gary Van Schooneveld, CT Associates, and Dan Wilcox, Page. Details of the upcoming IRDS Water and Energy focus team is also included in the presentation.

Technology

The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced in October that a research team has developed a photocatalyst which can quickly and completely decompose a trace amount of alcohol in water by adding small amounts of copper to iron oxide during the advanced oxidation process. The aim of the new water treatment technology is to offer a reduced cost in the treatment of semiconductor wastewater.

Projects

TSMC started operation of its Southern Taiwan Science Park Water Reclamation Plant, which was developed to supply reclaimed water to the microelectronics facilities. The plant can supply 5000 tons of reclaimed water per day, and within a year the supply is expected to increase to 36,000 tons by 2026.

Micron recently announced two large investments. The first is $15 billion expansion in Boise which will be spent over the next 10 years. The second is an investment of up to $100 billion to build a mega-fab in New York state over the next 20 years, with a first phase investment of $20 billion by 2030. Construction of the New York site will begin in 2024. 

STMicroelectronics announced it will build a $728 million silicon carbide wafer plant in Italy. The five-year investment is expected to be supported by a $290 million fund of European Union state aid. Gradiant announced that it had won a slate of contracts totaling $30 million in September – one of which is for the design-build of an ultrapure water and wastewater facility for a new semiconductor fab in Singapore. The project will be completed in time for chip production to start in early 2023.

Company news

SK Hynix announced that is has successfully localized sourcing of neon gas for semiconductor manufacturing. This has been achieved through collaboration with Korean gas manufacturer TEMC and steelmaker POSCO. As such, the company is circumventing some of the difficulties associated with the unstable international market for importing specialty gases. SK Hynix aims to use completely locally produced neon by 2024.

After a year-long collaborative partnership between Merck and Micron for developing gas solutions with a low global warming potential (GWP) for semiconductor manufacturing, Micron is now testing an alternative low-GWP etch gas. The testing and validation of this new material is part of Micron’s target to reduce emissions by 42% from 2020-2030. Texas Instruments have launched chip production at its new 300mm wafer plant in Richardson, Texas, after two years of construction. This plant is the second fab on the site, and the overall site will manufacture more than 100 million analog chips per day.