The semiconductor industry faces an urgent dual challenge: sustaining rapid technological progress while meeting ambitious global sustainability goals. Semiconductor fabrication facilities are among the most complex industrial systems, with energy and water demands that rival small cities, and emissions. To navigate this complexity, the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS) Environmental Sustainability for Semiconductor Facilities (ESSF) team has developed an integrated modeling framework to evaluate, forecast, and guide energy efficiency and carbon reduction strategies.
At the heart of this effort is the IRDS Energy Model—a high-level yet comprehensive tool that calculates equivalent energy consumption, carbon footprint, and key performance indicators (KPIs) for semiconductor fabs. The model integrates facility utilities, environmental conditions, energy conversion factors (ECFs), and production variables to quantify energy demand across power, fuels, hydrogen, heating, and cooling. It enables scenario analysis, technology gap identification, and solution roadmapping, making it a practical instrument for aligning the industry’s sustainability ambitions with operational realities. Complementing the Energy Model is a suite of supporting tools: dashboards for multi-level KPIs, schematics of facility systems, and a solutions playbook cataloging energy efficiency opportunities. Together, these resources provide a structured approach to continuous improvement, enabling fabs and suppliers to assess trade-offs, benchmark against industry targets, and prioritize investments in green energy, efficiency improvements, and emissions abatement technologies. Case studies, such as high-temperature process cooling water (HT PCW) systems, demonstrate the model’s ability to quantify and validate significant energy-saving opportunities. Beyond energy, the framework is expanding to incorporate water modeling and Scope 3 considerations, recognizing the critical interdependencies between water circularity, materials, chemicals, and externalities in the broader supply chain. The results highlight a transformative potential: by leveraging coordinated models, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and a roadmap-driven approach, the industry can accelerate innovation in sustainable manufacturing. Key strategies include eliminating high-global-warming-potential gases (e.g., SF₆), improving destruction and removal efficiencies (DREs) for process gases, eliminating fossil fuel reliance, adopting alternative heat transfer fluids, and integrating clean energy sources. As fabs evolve in scale and complexity, sustainability must be embedded not as an afterthought, but as a design principle. The IRDS ESSF Energy Model demonstrates how modeling and data-driven insights can serve as catalysts for systemic change—bridging the gap between manufacturing and facility technologies and charting a path toward reduced emissions, optimized resource use, and industry-wide net-zero alignment.
