Opportunities and Challenges to Sustainable Manufacturing and CMP

Today the requirements for reducing the impact of our manufacturing activities are increasing as the world awakes to and addresses the environmental impacts of our society. Energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, materials availability and use, environmental impact levels, etc. are all topics of interest. Semiconductor manufacturing in general and process steps such as CMP are not exempt from this and, in many cases, the industry has led the efforts in reducing impacts. This paper will first review some of the drivers for sustainable manufacturing, then define some of the terms that will be useful for determining the engineering aspects of sustainability and sustainable manufacturing, as well as metrics for assessing the impact of manufacturing in general and CMP in particular. An assessments of CMP will be given to illustrate the potential for “design for the environment” in CMP and related processes. Consideration will be given to research opportunities, including process modeling, that this focus provides to CMP researchers, consumable suppliers and industry.