SILVER · Semiconductor Industry Leading towards Viable Energy Recovery

There is no doubt that ICT, supported by semiconductor technology, can play in using more efficiently energy resources and in allowing the adoption of renewable energy production, care must be taken that the complete life cycle of the envisaged technologies is considered, and that also the energy costs for the production of the critical semiconductor components are minimized. This concept applies also to all industrial sectors, like photovoltaics and solid-state lighting, that are largely based on the same technologies as semiconductor manufacturing. The envisaged “green society” can only be such if based on “green fabs” for the manufacturing of the critical components. The SILVER project targets at the design, development and assessment of innovative and comprehensive approaches to reduce the environmental impact of existing semiconductor manufacturing. The project will focus on the development of innovative solutions for the reduction of water and energy consumption, which will result also in the mitigation of greenhouse effect.The project aims to achieve the result through a sequence of coordinated R&D actions involving facility and equipment development.The path to solution will be:a)Reduction of direct energy consumption through:•control of the idle mode of equipment•equipment and process modelling•optimization of process recipes on plasma equipmentb)Reduction of D.I. water consumption through:•Introduction of new cleaning procedures;•Optimization of water consumption in critical process steps;•Water recycling and re-use.The final objective is to demonstrate new technologies that will enable the participating companies to achieve reduction in water and energy consumption in line with the targets that international organizations are defining for the next period.