Electronics And Sustainability: Can Smart Engineering Save The Planet?

By Frank Schirrmeister - 28 Apr, 2022 - Comments: 0

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

By Jessica Albright - 20 Jan, 2022 - Comments: 0

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

By Jessica Albright - 22 Jul, 2021 - Comments: 0

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?

By Dennis Laudick - 13 May, 2021 - Comments: 0

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

By Jeff Dorsch - 01 Oct, 2019 - Comments: 0

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

By Allen Baker - 08 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

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

By Katherine Derbyshire - 29 Dec, 2016 - Comments: 0

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

By Katherine Derbyshire - 14 Dec, 2016 - Comments: 0

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

Sustainability Saves Water, Too

By Katherine Derbyshire - 30 Nov, 2016 - Comments: 0

After energy (discussed in Part 2 of this series), water is the largest fab input and the largest contributor to fab waste. Yet tools for analyzing a fab’s water footprint are generally less mature than tools for analyzing emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. In part, this may be because water consumption is primarily a local issue, while greenhouse gas emissions are a global c... » read more

The Limits Of The Lifecycle

By Katherine Derbyshire - 17 Nov, 2016 - Comments: 0

In the first article in my series on sustainability, I cited one estimate that attributed most of the electricity consumed by an integrated circuit to manufacturing, not use. Other analyses, however, come to exactly the opposite conclusion, with above 90% of lifetime energy consumption accounted for by the use phase. How can that be? The glib answer is that industry efforts to build more eff... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

Key Technologies To Extend EUV To 14 Angstroms

Alongside high-NA EUV will be better-performing photoresists, reduced roughness using passivation and etch, and lateral etching to reduce tip-to-tip dimensions.

by Laura Peters

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

Why Small Fab And Assembly Houses Are Thriving

Megafabs churning out the most advanced processors are not the only game in town.

by Bryon Moyer

tag: sustainability