Goals of Going Green


The chip industry is stepping up efforts to be seen as environmentally friendly, driven by growing pressure from customers and government regulations. Some manufacturers have been addressing sustainability challenges for more than a decade, but they are becoming more aggressive in their efforts, while others are joining them. A review of sustainability reports across the semiconductor indust... » read more

Supply Chain Collaboration Key To Making Chip Industry More Sustainable


Coming in the wake of the COP27, the Smart and Green Manufacturing Summit at SEMICON Europa 2022 (Munich, 15-17 November) had a timely focus on the semiconductor industry’s contribution to meeting the United Nations’ target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. However, in an industry as large and valuable as semiconductors, social as well as environmental imp... » read more

How The Electronics Industry Can Shape A More Sustainable, Energy-Efficient World


By Piyush Sancheti and Godwin Maben We’re already experiencing the effects of our world’s changing climate—devastating wildfires, prolonged droughts, torrential flooding, just to name a few examples. Global energy consumption is increasing, raising carbon dioxide levels and triggering extreme weather conditions. Two key forces driving these trends are the shift to hyperscale datacenter... » read more

How Climate Change Affects Data Centers


Data centers are hot, and they may get even hotter. As climate change impacts temperatures around the world, designers are changing the computing hubs that are tied to nearly every aspect of modern life to make them more efficient, more customized, and potentially more disaggregated. These shifts are taking on new urgency as the tech industry grapples with months of sweltering temperatures o... » read more

Collaborating To Decarbonize The Semiconductor Manufacturing Value Chain


By Mousumi Bhat and Peter Spiller SEMICON West 2022 Hybrid gathered experts from across the semiconductor industry for the debut Sustainability Summit to talk about the sustainability of the industry’s growth. Semiconductor chips have become ubiquitous in recent years. All aspects of society have become extremely dependent on semiconductors. The post-pandemic revenue growth of semicondu... » read more

Electronics And Its Role In Climate Change


Sustainability has become a “scorching topic” (pun intended) in discussions I have with customers and ecosystem partners. It is now vital to many corporations as part of what many they report on “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ESG). It can also be very confusing. In this post, I am trying to clarify some confusion after attending and organizing several related events recently. ... » read more

The Battery Problem


The fires sweeping the West Coast of the United States point to the need for a whole different way of managing power on both a macro and a micro level. Since the millennium, the power demand from data centers and from mobile devices has been climbing steadily. There are roughly 7.8 billion people on the planet, up from 6.115 billion people in 2000, according to the World Bank. Many of them o... » read more

Semiconductors And The Climate Curve


On July 22 I participated in a panel at the virtual SEMICON West conference called “Bending the Climate Curve: Enabling Sustainable Growth of Big Data, AI, and Cloud Computing.” Virtual conferences are mandatory these days, but give a different experience than physical ones. They are very good at disseminating information and are reasonably effective at networking. But, in my experience... » read more

The Largest Planet-Wide Business Opportunity….Ever


Last week was the official start of the largest planet-wide business opportunity for semiconductors…ever. The world’s largest economy has decided that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that will be regulated. Direct action has started. In a few years every new car will be a hybrid, renewable power generation will be the norm, and every new house will have solar panels. To my mind this has b... » read more