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| Fig. 1: TSMC's fabrication plant in Hsinchu, Taiwan (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
Semiconductors play a key role in today's technology-filled society, and the semiconductor industry is a significant driver of global economic growth, influencing various sectors and contributing substantially to GDP and employment worldwide. [1] The industry demands a significant amount of energy for the fabrication and manufacturing processes. [2] A closer look into the statistics helps scope this amount.
Manufacturing semiconductors takes a lot of energy. For example, operating one fabrication plant like in Fig. 1 can consume energy that is equivalent to powering 50,000 homes. [2] Five main processes contribute to this extreme energy usage. [3] First, a high recirculation rate of filtered airflow is required for an ultra-clean environment like in Fig. 2, resulting in high energy use by fans. [3] Next, precise humidity and temperature must be maintained, resulting in energy usage by climate control devices. [3] There is also the energy used by the equipment itself, plus the energy required to process ultra-pure water and pure gases needed by the equipment. [3] Finally, the exhaust air produced must be cooled and treated, which requires energy. [3] Through these various ways of using energy, the top 27 semiconductor manufacturing companies consume [1]
Assuming a per capita energy usage of 5884.8 kWh per year, this is enough energy to power a city with
| 5.36 × 1017 J y-1 5884.8 kWh person-1 y-1 × 3.6 × 106 J kWh-1 |
= | 25.3 million people |
which is similar to Shanghai's population. [1] We can also calculate the kerosene equivalent of this energy. [4]
 |
| Fig. 2: Clean room of a semiconductor manufacturing plant (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
| 5.36 × 1017 J y-1 43.92 × 109 J tonne-1 |
= | 1.22 × 10 7 tonne y-1 |
Since the Boeing 747 has a fuel capacity of 47,210 gallons, we can assume kerosene's density of 0.8 g/mL or 3 × 10-3 ton gal-1 and calculate the number of Boeing 747 jets that can fly with a full tank using the energy that the semiconductor industry uses per year. [4,5]
| 1.22 × 10 7 tonne 3 × 10-3 tonne gal-1 × 47,210 gal jet-1 |
= | 86,140 jets |
Therefore, the semiconductor manufacturing industry consumes as much energy per year as 86,140 Boeing 747 jets fully fueled. For reference, there were 31.26 million flights worldwide in 2006. [6] To understand this number in another way, the entire information and communications technologies (ICT) industry uses around 920 TWh per year, which is equivalent to [7]
Therefore, we can see that the semiconductor manufacturing industry's energy consumption is a fraction
| 5.36 × 1017 J y-1 3.31 × 1018 J y-1 |
= | 0.16 |
of the entire ICT industry's energy usage.
In conclusion, we have found that the semiconductor manufacturing industry's energy usage is relatively low compared to other industries like transportation and ICT. We have also found that the total energy used by the entire industry is about the same as the energy used in a big megacity like Shanghai. While the semiconductor manufacturing industry is expanding rapidly due to market demand, it ranks lower than the transportation and ICT industries in terms of energy usage, and therefore in terms of attention needed to decrease carbon emissions. [3]
© Daniel Lee. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] Q. Wang et al., "Environmental Data and Facts in the Semiconductor Manufacturing Industry: An Unexpected High Water and Energy Consumption Situation," Water Cycle 4, 47 (2023).
[2] K.-H. Chang et al., "Optimizing the Energy Efficiency of Chiller Systems in the Semiconductor Industry Rhrough Big Data Analytics and an Empirical Study," J. Manuf. Syst. 60, 652 (2021).
[3] S.-C. Hu and Y. K. Chuah, "Power Consumption of Semiconductor Fabs in Taiwan," Energy 28, 895 (2003).
[4] "BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2022," British Petroleum, June 2022.
[5] M. W. Bowman, Boeing 747: A History: Delivering the Dream (Crowood Press, 2000).
[6] J. T. Wilkerson et al., "Analysis of Emission Data From Global Commercial Aviation: 2004 and 2006," Atmos. Chem. Phys. 10, 6391 (2010).
[7] E. Gelenbe and Y. Caseau, "The Impact of Information Technology on Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions," Ubiquity 2015, No. June, 1 (2015).
