14 DAY TRIAL // A recent study carried out by the International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI) – an organization dedicated to improving both the costs and the cycle times for manufacturers in the semiconductor industry – argues that semiconductor fabrication plants have considerably improved on their energy use.
Official reports indicate that, since 1997 up until 2011, the annual energy use in the case of various fabs (i.e. semiconductor manufacturing plants) has been greatly diminished as a result of waste heat recoveries and reuse practices.
Thus, on the one hand, the process equipment in these plants is proved to have improved its efficiency energy-wise by 50%.
On the other hand, as environmentalleader.com informs us, the amount of energy consumed by non-process equipment functioning within the fab's perimeter has become a mere quarter of its 1997 values.
It seems that the idea to reduce energy consumption by means of waste heat recovery and reuse practices is the brainchild of the following observation: in the case of most Asian, North American and European semiconductor manufacturing facilities, chiller plants and bulk gas production were rather high energy consumers.
Thus, starting with the year 1997, ISMI's Environment, Safety and Health Technology Center started looking into ways to find and implement the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes.
Naturally, their findings were then communicated to representatives of various semiconductor fabrication plants.
This partnership lead to the several improvements made in terms of the fabs' overall activity plan: the introduction of an “idle” mode for vacuum pumps, bettering the exhaust flows on tools, and finding ways to optimize heat removal.
From an environmental standpoint, the aforementioned efforts to cut down on energy use are quite welcomed, and it is our belief that more companies should work towards finding ways to obtain the best of results whilst at the same time keeping energy use down to a minimum.