Reducing Greenhouse Gases In Manufacturing


Businesses must reduce their environmental impact. One of the most significant ways to do this is by reducing their carbon footprint, and this starts with monitoring carbon emissions. Carbon emissions are responsible for 81% of overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and businesses are responsible for a lot of it. The rest of the GHG emissions are methane (10%), nitrous oxide (7%) and fluorin... » read more

Deep Tech Drives Semiconductor Sustainability


SEMI spoke with Luc Van den hove, president and CEO at Imec, about semiconductor sustainability, healthcare trends, and deep tech, and their implications for the semiconductor industry. Van den hove shared his views ahead of his keynote presentation at SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium Europe (ISS Europe), on May 30, 2022, in Brussels, Belgium. Join us at the event to meet experts from Imec... » read more

Electronics And Sustainability: Can Smart Engineering Save The Planet?


We just celebrated Earth Day 2022 with great fanfare. In discussions with my favorite Gen Z family member, I sense genuine concerns that sustainability goals seem like a tall order. Let’s review the contributions the electronics industry can make to sustainability. First, defining sustainability seems to lead to three main pillars—environmental, social, and economic sustainability. I fou... » read more

Sustainability In Creating Next-Gen Materials


In recent years, sustainable manufacturing has become increasingly vital in the materials industry with growing concerns about the impact of manufacturing on the environment. Minimizing the intrinsic risks associated with any manufacturing operation while maximizing the quality and opportunities that arise with improved products is and should be the goal of almost every manufacturer today. At... » read more

Eco-Friendly Initiatives For Semiconductor Sustainability


Global warming is a hot topic lately, pun intended, contributing to an over 2-degree temperature increase in the last two centuries—which might not seem significant until you factor in the larger stress it puts on our ecosystem (and economy): fire threats, water shortages, and increases in natural disasters. In the last four decades, damages from climate disasters have cost the US 2 trillion... » read more

Is AI Good Or Bad For The Planet?


Will artificial intelligence save or sink planet earth? We’re surrounded by AI. When you use the internet, take a photo, use predictive text, or watch TV, you are interacting with AI. And we are still in the early stages of this revolution in technology and our lives. But AI can require large amounts of power. Researchers have documented the astounding amount of power required to train ... » read more

System Bits: Oct. 1


Jumping the gap in microchips A quasi-particle that travels along the interface of a metal and dielectric material may be the solution to problems caused by shrinking electronic components, according to an international team of engineers. "Microelectronic chips are ubiquitous today," said Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Evan Pugh University Professor and Charles Godfrey Binder Professor of Engineering S... » read more

Energy Requirements And Challenges For IoT Autonomous Intelligence At The Edge


Recently, on a cold February night at San Jose State University, I attended the fourth episode of the talk series IR4: The Cognitive Era. IR4 talks focus on the fourth Industrial Revolution that is currently taking place and how cognitive science affects education, careers, and life. This latest part involved four esteemed experts on cloud and edge computing and the ramifications of energy effi... » read more

More Reactive, Less Warming


As mentioned in Part 4 of Semiconductor Engineering's series on fab sustainability, molecular fluorine is one alternative to PFCs or NF3 for CVD chamber cleaning in the integrated circuit and flat panel display industries. It has a number of advantages relative to NF3: an unstable, highly reactive molecule, F2 breaks down easily and has no global warming potential.  When NF3 is used, atomic... » read more

More Than Just Carbon Dioxide


As discussed in Part Two of this series, lifecycle analyses of greenhouse gas emissions consider both direct and indirect sources. Indirect CO2 emissions, attributed to electricity and other forms of energy purchased by the fab, are the semiconductor industry’s single largest environmental impact. Of those emissions, a large fraction are attributable to plasma-based etch and deposition steps,... » read more

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