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Andrius Plepys

Andrius Plepys

Lecturer

Andrius Plepys

The environmental impacts of electronics. Going beyond the walls of semiconductor fabs

Author

  • Andrius Plepys

Summary, in English

The growing complexity of integrated circuits and increasing component density place higher requirements for raw material and clean room standards, which demand significant amounts of energy. In spite of these developments, semiconductor facilities managed to reduce their energy intensity measured per product unit. At the same time, the impact of increasing circuit integration on upstream life cycle stages, such as chemical manufacturing, is not clear. Due to a lack of data, most of the existing LCA studies do not include chemical-related processes into their system boundaries, which leads to an incomplete picture of semiconductor environmental aspects. The increasing material purity requirements may contribute to shifting the centre of manufacturing-related environmental impacts from circuit fabrication to raw material production stages. This article points to insufficient knowledge of environmental issues related to ultra-pure chemical manufacturing. The problem is illustrated by an example of energy demands for the silicon chain and wet chemicals. The paper discusses the feasibility of using material price as a proxy for production energy intensity and proposes a framework for collecting process related energy data. The author suggests that by mapping the patterns of chemical usage and focusing on high-grade materials consumed in large volumes it is possible to reduce data collection efforts and improve the existing energy estimates

Department/s

  • The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics

Publishing year

2004

Language

English

Pages

159-165

Publication/Series

Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37511)

Document type

Conference paper

Publisher

IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

Topic

  • Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Keywords

  • silicon chain energy intensity
  • ultra-pure chemical manufacturing
  • clean room standards
  • raw material production
  • material purity requirements
  • LCA studies
  • chemical manufacturing
  • upstream life cycle stages
  • semiconductor facilities
  • raw material standards
  • component density
  • integrated circuit complexity
  • electronics environmental impact
  • semiconductor fabs
  • wet chemicals
  • production energy intensity
  • process related energy data
  • semiconductor chemicals
  • high-grade chemicals
  • life cycle assessment

Conference name

Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment

Conference date

2004-05-10 - 2004-05-13

Conference place

Scottsdale, AZ, United States

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISBN: 0-7803-8250-1