As TSMC pledges to reach net zero emissions by 2050, a look at how the semiconductor industry is tackling its huge carbon footprint and resource consumption
As demand for chips surges, the semicondutor industry is trying to grapple with its huge carbon foot print — he semiconductor industry has a problem.
Put another way, the entire electrical footprint of the global semiconductor industry - large enough that it's worth a standalone feature article on how serious its carbon emissions are - is barely one tenth of the electrical footprint of Bitcoin alone.
Something that stood out: TSMC (with 55% of the global market share, per https://www.theregister.com/ ...) uses 5% of all Taiwan's electricity, which is approx 12TWh/yr. Bitcoin's electricity footprint is... 13 times that, at 164TWh/yr ( https://digiconomist.net/...) https://www.…
The semiconductor industry has a problem. Demand is booming for silicon chips, which are embedded in everything from smartphones and televisions to wind turbines, but it comes at a big cost: a huge carbon footprint. https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
TSMC alone uses almost 5% of all Taiwan's electricity, according to figures from Greenpeace, predicted to rise to 7.2% in 2022 https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
In the US, a single fab produced nearly 15,000 tons of waste in the first three months of this year, about 60% of it hazardous. It also consumed 927m gallons of fresh water, enough to fill about 1,400 Olympic swimming pools. https://www.theguardian.com/ ...