The 1.7 Kilogram Microchip: Energy and Material Use in the Production of Semiconductor Devices
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- 作者：Eric D. Williams ; Robert U. Ayres ; and Miriam Heller
- 刊名：Environmental Science & Technology
- 出版年：2002
- 出版时间：December 15, 2002
- 年：2002
- 卷：36
- 期：24
- 页码：5504 - 5510
- 全文大小：85K
- 年卷期：v.36,no.24(December 15, 2002)
- ISSN：1520-5851
文摘
The scale of environmental impacts associated with themanufacture of microchips is characterized through analysisof material and energy inputs into processes in theproduction chain. The total weight of secondary fossilfuel and chemical inputs to produce and use a single 2-gram32MB DRAM chip are estimated at 1600 g and 72 g,respectively. Use of water and elemental gases (mainlyN2) in the fabrication stage are 32 000 and 700 g per chip,respectively. The production chain yielding siliconwafers from quartz uses 160 times the energy requiredfor typical silicon, indicating that purification to semiconductorgrade materials is energy intensive. Due to its extremely low-entropy, organized structure, the materials intensity ofa microchip is orders of magnitude higher than that of"traditional" goods. Future analysis of semiconductor andother low entropy high-tech goods needs to include theuse of secondary materials, especially for purification.