The global semiconductor industry could save nearly $500 million per year in energy costs – enough electricity to power a small city – by making modest improvements to its tools and facility support systems, according to a study by Austin, Texas-based International Sematech Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI).
Also, ISMI said it found that some of its 12 member companies, which represent half the world’s semiconductor production capacity, are already saving millions of dollars yearly from reductions in cleanroom air velocity, air conditioning optimization, ultrapure water reductions, use of high-efficiency motors, and various other energy conservation activities.
Prompted by member company and industry concerns over rapid spikes in energy costs, coupled with a continuing commitment to environmental best practices established by the World Semiconductor Council, the ISMI energy conservation study was compiled by ISMI’s Environment, Safety and Health (ESH) program, and showcases success stories at member companies that have adopted the consortium’s recommended practices.
“Energy reduction is a rich source of cost savings for chip-makers, but it often gets lost amid other concerns over fab productivity and equipment issues,” said Scott Kramer, ISMI director, in a statement. “There is also a dearth of reliable data throughout the industry. Only a few fabs in the world accurately measure their energy consumption, and so progress is usually hard to measure in most factories.”
The ESH completed the industry’s first comprehensive fab energy use survey in 1997 and since then has published 26 technology transfer reports and dozens of presentations available to members, which collectively documented best practices for energy and resource conservation.
Best practices include enabling and using the “idle” mode in vacuum pumps, optimizing exhaust flows on tools, lowering cleanroom airflow through HEPA filters, optimizing nitrogen use and onsite nitrogen generation, as well as measuring key tools to optimize heat removal.
For example, ISMI’s ESH engineers have found that new, low-energy vacuum pumps use less than half the electrical power of current versions and can be idled during non-productive periods to save an additional 30 percent of consumption. Similarly, technologists have discovered that exhaust flows can be reduced by 30 to 80 percent without impacting yields or exposing workers to harmful emissions, for an annual savings of $600,000 per fab.
ISMI reported that members that have imported these and other practices into their own manufacturing operations have realized significant savings over the years. One member company is saving more than $3.3 million per year from cleanroom HEPA velocity reductions, and another has reported more than $3 million in annual savings through various energy conservation activities worldwide with a third company reducing ultrapure water usage by 94 million gallons per year, saving nearly $600,000 annually, ISMI said.
The study concluded that if the entire chip industry were to incorporate all of ISMI’s best practices for energy reduction, the total annual savings would amount to 4.8 billion kilowatt hours per year -- which amounts to an estimated $480 million, or enough power for 177,000 homes.
“As the semiconductor industry struggles to maintain its profitability, energy conservation is a promising source of cost containment that also carries the important benefit of environmental protection. This is truly an important frontier that deserves further exploration,” Kramer said.
For its part, ISMI said the ESH program has launched several initiatives to expand conservation activities among its members and the industry including the ISMI Energy Conservation Working Group, a forum for member company technical experts to review energy projects and discuss technical issues, the Supplier ESH Leadership Team, which encourages leading equipment suppliers to develop roadmaps for equipment energy reduction, energy workshops for members to share results of energy conservation projects, leadership in developing equipment energy conservation standards and collaboration with other consortia, universities and national laboratories in developing energy guidelines.
“The semiconductor industry has few equals when it comes to resource conservation and minimizing its environmental impact. Through these and other activities, ISMI will continue to work in that tradition,” Kramer concluded.
