Mike Yurconic, Intel Technology Development EHS, Hillsboro, Oregon 

ABSTRACT 

In the mid-1980s, Intel documented its Design for EHS philosophy for process tools and developed a set of internal design requirements with which suppliers must comply.  After Sematech’s industry-wide guidelines became available, Design for EHS evolved into the New Equipment Procurement Process (NEPP). The major element of the NEPP requirements is tool conformance to SEMI S2, Environmental, Health and Safety Guideline for Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment and SEMI S8, Safety Guidelines for Ergonomics/Human Factors Engineering of Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment.  Tool suppliers are required to provide copies of the SEMI S2/S8 reports for all first-of-a-kind tools purchased by Intel-to-Intel EHS with the expectation of 100% conformance.  NEPP has been extremely successful, reducing the number of design-related EHS issues associated with the installation and operation of process tools in Intel fabs virtually to zero.

Scott Stewart, Intel Corporation, Hilsboro, OR, USA

ABSTRACT

This article explores the challenge faced by semiconductor manufacturing facilities to reduce their environmental footprint and avoid regulatory constraints. Wafer fabs continue to increase in size and complexity, while regulatory emissions limits continue to shrink. The focus is on volatile organic compound emissions (VOCs), which pose the most likely constraining air permit limit. Areas covered include common air permit limits and requirements, analysis of VOC sources at a typical semiconductor facility and examples of wins from Intel's VOC reduction toolbox including improved waste management procedures. Finally, attention is given to remaining emissions problems and what must be done to ensure future manufacturing capability. 

Chin-Tsao Yang, Shu-Hou Wang, Milton Li, Wu-Hsiung Fu, & Max Chen, Facility department, Powerchip Semiconductor Corporation

ABSTRACT
During the design of PSC's Fab 12A, whole system efficiency was promoted, particularly in terms of power consumption. One of the most effective energy-saving projects was to lower the temperature of cooling water to promote the operational efficiency of the chiller system. This measure resulted in power savings for the chiller system of about 15 percent or some 7GWH of electricity a year. 

Philip Naughton, Freescale Semiconductor Inc. Assignee at SEMATECH, Austin, Texas, USA

ABSTRACT
Resource consumption directly impacts the cost of semiconductor manufacturing and indirectly contributes to environmental pollution. Several resource-conservation projects and surveys since 1996, have been performed at Sematech member companies and suppliers demonstrating significant reductions in tool and resource consumption are possible but are they enough? The ITRS roadmap continues to challenge new fabs to meet ever-decreasing energy goals. The World Semiconductor Council and SEMI have issued their White Paper on Energy suggesting normalized energy reductions for wafer fabs. In order to achieve measurable reductions both factory owners and tools suppliers will need to baseline their energy consumption and establish specific targets for improvement. 

Pablo Ruiz, RFAB Process Waters and Drains Project Manager, Texas Instruments, Dallas, Texas, USA

ABSTRACT

In the first quarter of 2004, TI began design of its new wafer fabrication facility in Richardson, Texas, five miles north of the main Dallas campus. We reexamined how to competitively build and operate this new facility and reconsidered all of our old paradigms of how we should build a wafer fab. By the end of the design process we determined that we could  build a competitive fab while reducing first costs and ongoing operational costs. In this article I will be discussing some of these  design elements in TI's newest fab we now call RFAB. 

Mark Osborne, Editor-in-Chief, Semiconductor Fabtech

ABSTRACT

Energy-consumption-reduction strategies are nothing new, however, such energy-saving efforts have not been successful in reducing the overall energy consumption of the semiconductor industry. The total number of operational fabs continues to increase due to the continued growth of the industry. The number of "Mega" 300-mm fabs (50 by the end of 2005) [1] that have significantly higher energy consumption levels is also rising. The world is also coming to terms with the realisation that energy costs will continue to rise as consumption of fossil fuels (regarded as the cheapest energy source) is under sustained supply/demand pressure. 

Michael W. Wismer & Richard E.Woodling, USFilter, Milpitas, CA, USA

ABSTRACT

The Copper Select™ process is being used at many semiconductor Fabs around the world to successfull treat copper-bearing CMP wastewaters. The patented process removes copper from wastewater without removing the CMP slurry particles. Studies have shown the process to be very successful with most commercially available copper slurry formulations. 

Jay M. Dietrich, Chemical, Environmental and Utility Systems, IBM Burlington, USA

ABSTRACT

As the semiconductor industry has transitioned from aluminum to copper metallization, it has been necessary to overcome many technical challenges in the device-manufacturing process. The required process changes for the chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) process have had a significant impact on the characteristics of the process wastewaters generated by the CMP process. 

Walter F.Worth, International SEMATECH, Austin, Texas, USA

ABSTRACT

For the last three years, International SEMATECH has had an active program to identify potential environment, safety, and health (ESH) impacts associated with the development of advanced lithography technologies. The focus has mainly centered on 157-nm lithography, 193-nm immersion lithography, and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. Through close collaboration with the technologists in SEMATECH's lithography division, it is hoped that ESH concerns can be identified and addressed during the early stages of the materials selection and process/tool development, well in advance of their introduction into high-volume manufacturing (HVM). 

Dan Seif and Silke Hermanns, AMD

ABSTRACT

From 1995 to year-end 2001, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) achieved an 18% reduction in perfluorocompound (PFC) emissions as measured by carbon equivalents (CE) despite significant growth in manufacturing activity and revenue. This reduction was achieved via chemistry changes, gas use optimization, new technology implementation, legacy technology phase-out, and point-of-use abatement. While significant emission reductions have been made, new areas of PFC use and the projected growth of the industry present a continuing challenge. Of particular concern are PFC use in die packaging, single wafer pass etch chamber cleans, and post-etch residue stripping. Issues surrounding fugitive heat transfer fluid emissions and nitrous oxide are also presented. 

Mieke Van Bavel, Kristel Van den Broeck, Nausikaä Van Hoornick, Jan Van Hoeymissen, IMEC, Leuven, Belgium & Robert de Boer, DHV Water BV, The Netherlands

ABSTRACT

The development of a sustainable technology for the treatment of HF containing wastewater is an important issue for the semiconductor industry. This paper presents a method that allows treating HF wastewater without waste production. The method uses the Crystalactor® technology and is based on the particles in a fluidized bed reactor. Optimal working conditions were determined for the treatment of real wastewater originating from a semiconductor prototyping line Depending on the operating conditions, the treated water can have a fluoride concentration as low as 10 ppm, and exhibits a low turbidity. In addition, a post-treatment process for the further removal (< 10 ppm) of fluoride in the effluent is presented. 

D. Keith Henson and Michael A. Fitzpatrick, Lockwood Greene, Spartanburg, SC, USA

ABSTRACT

Within months of the events of September 11, most new faces at security seminars prefaced delivery of a business card with an apology that the card did not correctly include "and Security" after Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS). In most industries security falls within this category. However, security is somewhat new to most manufacturers, so where should one start? Simply put, by following a methodology known as "Threat and Vulnerability Analysis." By knowing your business, you are halfway there. 

Brian Raley & Chris Nauert, Motorola, Austin, Texas, USA

ABSTRACT

Motorola has investigated numerous cost reduction efforts from water conservation at several different sites. This paper will discuss some of the recently implemented and relatively simple water use reduction activities including flow standardization across tools (in CMP, fab support equipment and wet cleans) as well as wait-time flow reduction, RCA clean rinse reduction, and installation of restrictive flow orifices in CMP slurry lines. 

Jeffrey D.Williams, Dept. of Defense, Ft. George G. Meade, MD, USA

ABSTRACT

Gases which have been used in the semiconductor industry are now being regarded as having serious environmental concerns. Aggressive programs are being developed to phase out and eliminate these gases, collectively known as PFCs. As a result,
 alternative gases are being sought for the applications of chamber cleaning and wafer etch. A number of alternatives have emerged for both applications, and their performance and properties are discussed. 

Stephen W. Blocki, Dürr Environmental Inc, Wixom, MI, USA

ABSTRACT

Many plants are struggling with the problems presented by VOC abatement systems such as oxidisers, concentrators, and solvent recovery systems; problems such as the initial investment which adds no value to the end product, the cost to operate and maintain the system, and the challenge of quickly responding to emergencies which risk shutting down entire production facilities. When new technologies offer hope to improve the situation, plants not well versed in abatement face the risk presented by new technology. 

Laura Mendicino, Victor Vartanian, Brian Goolsby & Paul Thomas Brown,
Motorola, DigitalDNA™ Laboratories, Austin, TX, USA

ABSTRACT

Many chemical vapour deposition (CVD) processes utilise new precursors and it is important to carry out environment, health and safety assessment of these during their use in R&D. Emissions characterisation is key to this process and a dry, hot scrubber system is described that can be utilised for point-of-use abatement in these advanced CVD processes. 

Richard Woodling, USFilter, Sunnyvale, CA, USA

ABSTRACT

The CMP solids are concentrated by the ceramic microfilter; a diafiltration system has been developed to remove copper from these solids. Laboratory trials of the crossflow filtration process were conducted, using ceramic membranes with pore sizes of 0.2 and 0.02 microns. Tests were performed on a pilot system, including a marathon test where the system operated on process-generated wastewater. Full-scale systems have now been designed and constructed.reated using standard technology, but the high-suspended-solids wastewater from CMP presents a new challenge. 

ABSTRACT

An improved technique has been developed to determine the destruction and removal efficiency (DRE) of point-of-use abatement systems (called local scrubbers). In this improved method, the DRE value is calculated using the exhaust gas mass flow rates. To determine the mass flow rates, the volumetric concentrations, measured by two Fourier transform infrared absorption spectrometers, as well as air temperatures, pressures and volumetric flow rates, are required.