The Environmental Cost of Silicon Chips

Col. Panic writes "Scientific American is running a small story about the amount of material required to produce silicon chips and the potential hazards of associated toxic chemicals." This combined with coltan mining processes sure paints a dark picture of the chip industry.

A clean room

[truthsearch]

I can't seem to find the link, but recently Wired published an article in their dead-tree magazine about replacements for many of the hazardous chemicals used in chip production. There are new ideas which will make most of the run-off biodegradable, and some companies are looking into building new factories to support these new techs in the long term. But there won't be any environmentally safe process anytime in the near future.

getting better!

[lopati]

at least from the intel press release [intel.com] :D

The new manufacturing technology enabled by the 300-mm technology also provides significant benefits from an environmental perspective. The chips manufactured in Fab11X will require less water and generate fewer emissions per chip than other fabs. Water and chemical use will be more efficient. When compared to a 200-mm facility Fab 11X will produce 48 percent less volatile organic compound emissions, use 42 percent less ultra pure water and will use approximately 40 percent less energy.

Re:The chemicals

[jmcharry]

Those are the least of it. I recall IBM, which was as careful as anyone, had problems with trichlor leaking into the ground water at their NY chip plant. HF is generally mixed with HNO3. The nitric oxidizes the Si into glass, which the HF eats. It is buffered with acetic acid. That stuff is seriously nasty.I don't recall any accidents with it, but there were a couple of legends. The processes also involve heavy metals.

Re:A clean room

[max cohen]

The replacement they were referring to in that article is super critical carbon dioxide. It is a viable solution to the environmental problem for chip production and already used for "greener" dry cleaning, but definately won't be ramping up in fabs anytime soon. Chip manufacturers are very slow and recluctant to change processes.

Re:How about solar cells?

[chrysrobyn]

One thing I've often wondered is whether a typical solar cell produces more energy in its lifetime than it takes to manufacture it?

I'm sorry I can't cite a reference, but it was either Home Power magazine [homepower.com] or the US Department of Engergy [doe.gov] that claimed solar cells pay for their energy (in terms of CO2 emissions) after 2-5 years of use, depending on location. 2 closer to the US Southwest, 5 closer to the Canadian border.

Re:Yes, it's true

[shilly]

He means "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" (TANSTAAFL). This acronym was introduced by Robert Heinlein, who is sometimes also cited as the originator of the phrase as well. It features in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and several of his other books as well. Robert Heinlein was one of the most popular science fiction authors of the 20th century, especially in the US. It's not such an obscure phrase, given Slashdot's audience.

Re:save some for the fishies!!!

[denzo]

> You cannot drink fab quality water because it a large concentration gradient would form and minerals from the other fluids in your body would be depleted by the migration into the ultra pure water.

This has made my BS detector twitch. As soon as the pure water hits my mouth, it becomes impure because it mixes with my spit, so there's really no such thing as "drinking ultra-pure water."

Yep, it's a myth that pure water leaches minerals from your body. Once it comes into contact with impurities (such as spit, like you mentioned), the water is no longer "pure". So how can pure water stay pure and do damage to our body? Even so, it will only remove minerals that are body has not used, not what has already been absorbed by our cells, which our body didn't need anyway. And our minerals aren't absorbed from water anyway, they're absorbed from food.

The only other way pure water can kill you is in a massive quantity, which would kill you even if it was normal drinking water.

Who's afraid of H2SO4?

[Phronesis]

HF, H2SO4, etc. are nasty, but easy to neutralize. If you neutralize them, they become aqueous solutions of relatively benign salts. The problems are more with organic solvents that have to be burned at high temperature and with heavy metals that cannot be rendered safe, but must be segregated from the environment.

Wired story about clean ship production

[iamr00t]

here [wired.com]
actualy tells you about ways to use clean technology in chip business

Wrong Focus

[Anonymous Coward]

I have worked in the chip industry for a bit more than a couple of decades. E.g. I remember when Fairchild in silicon valley was sued because of ground water contamination and child deformities showing up. It has always been recommended that pregnant women not work in the fab, but in this case it affected women outside the fab. A certain three initial company then quietly removed massive amounts of dirt from under another facility and trucked it away. I saw it being done.

As pointed out in other posts, the environmental impact due to the materials used in making just the chip, under normal circumstances, is small in the context of our industrial world. However, the real environmental impact is when things don't go as planned at the facility. Pipes and tanks leak, material transfers miss, gasses vent, etc. People sometimes hook things up wrong, turn the wrong valve, or push the wrong buttons. These are mostly low probability medium risk events - but we have a lot of chips being made and they do happen.

It is particularly distressing to find facilities with hazardous materials located on earthquake faults. I say this both because of the long term affects spills have, and because of the difficulties of getting workers out of a facility unharmed. E.g. HF once on the skin eats through until it makes it to calcium, i.e. the bone.

Remember Bhopal?

(On the subject of tantalum capacitors. No, we don't have to use tantalum. Capacitors can, and often are, made of other materials. In fact, I have found the failure rates on tantalum to be higher than for other materials despite the manufacturers published MTBF rates, so I prefer other materials.)