GlobalFoundries, Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) joined Imec's Sustainable Semiconductor Technologies and Systems (SSTS) research program. Those three leading chipmakers join existing SSTS members from across the integrated circuit ecosystem like Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon in "assessing the [environmental] impact from the manufacturing of semiconductor integrated chips," SSTS program director Lars-Åke Ragnarsson told SDxCentral.

"It is super important when you look at sustainability . . . that you have the full supply chain involved," Ragnarsson said while touting the significance of the program's newest members. For example, 75% of the environmental impact from mobile devices is tied to manufacturing processes, and more than 37% is associated with integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing. "That is a very big part," Ragnarsson stressed.

"SSTS’s success hinges on the active involvement of players from across the IC value chain," Imec CEO Luc Van den hove added.

In order to accurately assess the industry's environmental impact, Imec needed access to major foundries and the details of their well-hidden trade secrets. "We need foundries on board to tell us and guide us and benchmark with us our results so we can provide high-value information to all the other partners," Ragnarsson explained.

Foundry participation in SSTS is key not only for logic technologies, but for memory technologies as well, which are also on the program's list of research areas. "It's crucial to have [SSTS's] results compared with their results and to benchmark it together," he said.

Imec's SSTS program is funded through research program participation fees, and Imec, in turn, offers member organizations significant return on investment and access to research findings. But philosophically, the program is founded around key pillars designed to holistically improve the IC industry's sustainability stature.

The first SSTS pillar, assess, focuses on measuring the environmental impact of manufacturing ICs. The second pillar, improve, "is about taking the learning from assess and other aspects to define projects" that meaningfully reduce the negative environmental impacts and carbon emissions of semiconductor manufacturing and operations, Ragnarsson explained.

Imec's third pillar, disrupt, takes a "more holistic view" of the integrated circuit ecosystem to determine what type of innovative and non-mainstream manufacturing processes might significantly lower environmental impact. And finally, Imec focuses on how to inform public policymakers and its partners about the IC industry's contribution to climate change.

"Until now, our strongest part is clearly the assess [pillar]. Improve is growing a lot now, but still assess is lacking," Ragnarsson noted. Lifecycle inventory data for semiconductor-focused materials and processes in available databases "is very scarce when you look at advanced technologies," he explained. "That's where Imec can fill a role with our good understanding of how technologies are made. Using that knowledge, we can build a bottom-up understanding of the environmental impact."

Imec's SSTS isn't the only such program working to lower the industry's greenhouse gas emissions. For example, SEMI Semiconductor Climate Consortia – of which Intel is a founding member – shares a focus on addressing the industry's supply chain emissions.

While Intel is not currently involved with the SSTS and has not shared an intention to join the research program, an Intel spokesperson told SDxCentral the company is "participating in several industry consortia that will advance semiconductor manufacturing toward net-zero greenhouse gas emissions," and "we welcome the efforts of all industry groups to help achieve this mission."