Environmental concerns were front and center at SEMICON West in July, as a vendor debuted a new product, a speaker described a key technology that can reduce energy consumption, and the show organizer acknowledged significant environmental contributions.
In the first category, Dr. Horst Reichardt, chairman, president, and CEO of DAS Environmental Expert GmbH, and Dr. Guy Davies, director of the company’s gas business unit, were on hand to provide an overview of their company and describe the company’s new SALIX scrubber system. Dr. Davies described the project as the world’s first point-of-use system for gas abatement in single-wafer clean wet-bench semiconductor processes and as the only commercially available point-of-use scrubber system for removing waste-gas pollutants produced during wafer cleaning. The system employs a two-stage liquid-scrubbing process for chemical and physical absorption.
Dr. Reichardt described DAS as an environmental technology company focused on waste abatement in the semiconductor manufacturing and related industries. The company’s goal is to provide sustainable solutions that minimize resource use, promote uptime, and protect the environment. The family-owned business was founded in 1991 in Dresden. It has facilities in the United States, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Argentina.
And at the co-located Test Vision 2020 Workshop, Sri Jandhyala, strategic marketing director for the lighting segment at ON Semiconductor, delivered an invited address titled “LED Lighting—Opportunity, Challenges, and the Future.”
The United States annually consumes 700 TWhr for lighting, representing one-fifth of total annual electricity consumption, he said, and the U.S., in turn, consumes about one-fifth of the world’s total electricity. Energy-efficient LEDs had less than 1% penetration in the U.S. in 2010, he said, when an LED bulb with a standard Edison Screw Base cost more than $60 dollars.
Over the last six months, he said, the situation has changed dramatically, and now Cree widely advertises such bulbs on televised sports events for $10 (for a dimmable bulb with a 10-year warranty), enabling LED penetration to reach 36% in 2020. The $10 price tag, he said, represents the breaking of a key psychological barrier to LED purchases. And the U.S. lags, he suggested, noting that last year Japan posted 30% LED penetration.
He cited a key metric for LED lamps. A single 12.5-W LED lamp can deliver 20 million lumen hours, equivalent to three CFL lamps or 22 incandescent bulbs.
Jandhyala noted that current barriers to LED adoption include awareness, high initial cost, and quality concerns across manufacturers. So far, he said, LED benefits have been all about energy savings. But as barriers fall, new innovations will open up: motion sensing and smart lighting, color control, and spectrum shaping.
Finally, SEMICON West sponsor SEMI presented its “SEMI Outstanding EHS [Environment, Health, and Safety] Achievement Award—Inspired by Akira Inoue,” to Ajit Manocha, CEO of GLOBALFOUNDRIES. Manocha heads GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ Executive Stewards Council, a leadership forum for strategic direction and accountability for risk management, corporate responsibility, and sustainability. The awards committee cited Manocha’s leadership as instrumental in significant EHS achievements at GLOBALFOUNDRIES, specifically mentioning safety and eco-efficiency. The committee also acknowledged his work on EHS topics with the World Semiconductor Council with regard to PFC reduction and the establishment of a conflict-free supply chain.
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