A new study on energy saving programs within the International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI) membership has highlighted the good and the bad in the way energy is both sparingly used and abused.

"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. "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."

A member company prompted the new energy conservation study and industry concerns over increasing energy costs, according to ISMI.

The study found that if the whole semiconductor 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," said Kramer. "This is truly an important frontier that deserves further exploration."

The study also confirmed that savings were to be had in the range of millions of US dollars per year via reductions in cleanroom air velocity, air conditioning optimization, ultrapure water reductions, use of high-efficiency motors.

ISMI's ESH engineers noted 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 30-80 percent without impacting yields or exposing workers to harmful emissions, for an annual savings of $600,000 per fab.

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. A third company has reduced ultrapure water usage by 94 million gallons per year, saving nearly $600,000 annually.

Editor Note: An article written by Mark Osborne, Editor-in-Chief, Semiconductor Fabtech in Edition 26 covers energy conservation best practices from leading IC manufacturers. A PDF version of the article can be downloaded here.

Making the most of energy conservation