From material hotspots to circularity: Insights for semiconductor manufacturing

Semiconductor manufacturing consumes a variety of highly specialized materials, many of which require energy- and resource-intensive purification to reach semiconductor-grade quality. In the context of the industry's ambition to reduce its upstream environmental impact, it is important to understand which materials dominate and where material circularity could most effectively reduce them.

This lightning talk presents recent work from imec’s SSTS program, which applies a life-cycle-assessment (LCA) approach to identify the materials responsible for the majority of upstream environmental impacts in semiconductor manufacturing. Highlighting these hotspot materials helps focus attention on the processes and supply chains where improvements could have the greatest effect. The analysis also reveals significant data gaps. For several materials, publicly available life-cycle inventories do not adequately represent semiconductor-grade purification steps. Because purification steps can dominate energy use and emissions, missing or simplified data may influence the ranking of material hotspots. Finally, current practices and emerging pathways supporting circularity in the semiconductor industry are reviewed, including closed-loop material recovery and recycling of critical raw materials (CRMs).

Together, these insights clarify which materials matter most, where knowledge gaps remain, and where circular strategies are most promising.