TSMC has claimed to have reduced the power consumption of its EVU lithography tools by almost half – 44% to be precise – of what it used to draw. The reduction is part of the company’s EUV Dynamic Energy Saving Program, which it launched last month.
For context, as the world’s largest foundry, the fabs owned by TSMC in its home country of Taiwan constitute around 9% of the country’s total power consumption. The program has been gradually rolling out for its 15B, 18A, and 18B fabs, with plans to extend the system across all of its EUV tools globally before the end of the year.
Specifically, TSMC wishes to extend its reduction program to all its new facilities, including the second phase of Fab 21 in Arizona. In the long term, it hopes to save up to 190 million kWh of electricity by the year 2030, as well as reduce its CO2 emissions by 101,000 tons.
Energy efficiency isn’t just an agenda solely belonging to TSMC, but it is nevertheless an issue that it has been struggling to deal with. While the chipmaker isn’t disclosing the technical details on how it has managed to optimise its power consumption, it should also be pointed out that its reduction of 44% is merely a drop in the ocean.
Last year, its factories in Taiwan consumed 25.55 billion kWh of electricity, with only 3.61 billion of it coming from renewable sources. More importantly, less than half of that power consumption was actually used for its lithography endeavours, used more in support for the structures. Think cooling and keeping the overall area of these machines clean.
(Source: Tom’s Hardware, Techspot)
