Sustainable Water Usage in Semiconductor Manufacturing

A discussion about semiconductor facilities’ environmental footprint in relation to water consumption, energy usage, and site selection considerations.

Enabling Advanced Semiconductor Yield via Proactive Technology Management - an overview of the IRDS research work and future roadmap, as well as SEMI standard and future focus areas.

A study on how back grinding and dicing waste water are good low-hanging fruit candidates for short circuit reclaim or at least raw water substitution. Both approaches keep the water body within the fab and have huge cost benefit over simple discharge of the highly valuable permeate.

The semiconductor industry has increasingly ambitious sustainability goals. Eco efficiency goals are sometimes difficult to achieve in tandem with each other. For example, high water recovery requires more energy and chemicals. Additional energy also requires more evaporation water in the cooling towers. A modelling tool will be introduced to study scenarios to keep water and energy efficiency in balance and what impact it has on other boundary conditions. Improvements will require a different mindset in the future since potential solutions are multi-disciplinary and require cooperation of many different stake holders in the fab.

Three case studies for increasing water recycling rates, including local scrubber reclaim treatment challenges; inorganic and hydrofluoric acid wastewater challenges; and reverse osmosis reject minimization challenges

Unprecedented demand for semiconductor products is compelling the construction of larger, more complex facilities which consume increasing quantities of energy and water.

Roundtable event handout for February Community Event

Roundtable handout from February Community Event