Achieving Sustainability in the Semiconductor Industry: The Impact of Simulation and AI

Computational simulation has been used in the semiconductor industry since the 1950s to provide engineers and managers with a faster, more cost-effective method of designing semiconductors. With increased pressure in the semiconductor industry to move towards greener and more sustainable manufacturing, it is crucial to understand the impact of computational simulation and artificial intelligence on environmental sustainability, specifically reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper quantifies the degree to which various types of simulation used for hardware, process, and device optimization can be adopted for different applications in wafer fabrication equipment research and development, along with the potential reduction in physical experimentation, saving silicon, gases, chemicals, and wafers. With this understanding and an estimation of the equivalent carbon cost impact of the computation itself, analyzed projects demonstrated a significant (>80%) decrease in emissions, primarily driven by the ability to use fewer patterned and blanket wafers whose carbon footprint appears to be orders of magnitude larger than that of used modeling resources. The paper concludes with an attempt to quantify the environmental savings from virtualization across our entire research organization and to illustrate the potential future impact of described activities.