Sudden fire! Can TSMC's Nanke recycled water plant supply water as scheduled?

Latest update time：2021-10-22

Reads：

▲ For more exciting content, please click on the blue words above and follow us!

According to Taiwan's Central News Agency, a fire broke out at TSMC's Nankai Water Treatment Plant on the morning of October 21. The fire has been brought under control and no casualties have been reported. The Nankai Water Treatment Plant Administration has ordered the plant to stop operations pending an investigation.

It is reported that the water plant started construction in 2020 and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2021. By then, it will produce 20,000 tons of recycled water per day to supply TSMC with recycled water. Regarding whether the fire will affect the completion time, Zheng Xiurong, deputy director of the Southern Science and Technology Administration, said that the project is nearing completion and it is initially judged that it will not affect the plan to supply recycled water at the end of the month.

(Photo source: China Times Electronic News)

Electric welding at the recycled water plant caused a fire, and the construction site has been suspended

A fire was reported at 11 a.m. in the Nan Ke Industrial Park in Tainan City, Taiwan. A construction sponge caught fire at TSMC's recycled water plant under construction at No. 20, Nan Ke 9th Road, Shanhua District, Zhongding Engineering. A large amount of thick smoke billowed out of the scene. The Tainan City Fire Department dispatched the Nan Ke Detachment and 21 vehicles and 37 people to the scene for rescue. The fire was under control at 11:19.

While the firefighters were extinguishing the fire, they found two construction workers trapped in the sink next to the fire at 11:21. The stairs were blocked by the fire and they could not escape. The firefighters set up a ladder and rescued them safely. The two workers were conscious and not injured and did not need medical treatment. Preliminary investigations showed that the cause of the fire was suspected to be the accidental ignition of foam during welding.

On February 7, 2021, during the construction of the recycled water plant, a worker fell from a height into an 8-meter-deep water tank and died, so it was listed as a high-risk construction site. The Southern Science Park Administration said that it has invited experts to provide guidance on construction safety, and the site management has made great progress. Today, due to the accidental welding of foam, 270 workers were quickly evacuated from the plant. At present, the construction site has been ordered to stop work for subsequent investigations.

Nearly 90% of water used is recycled water, and each drop of water is used 3.5 times

The manufacture of semiconductors requires a lot of water, and water resource management is crucial to the semiconductor industry. Water resource management in the semiconductor manufacturing industry can be divided into three aspects: water use, wastewater management, and recycled water, and each type of water is treated and supplied according to its properties.

As the world's largest chip foundry and Taiwan's largest water and electricity user, TSMC established a corporate risk management system that includes water supply risks long ago to avoid the risk of water shortages. Water treatment and recycling are important parts of TSMC's water conservation. Currently, 85%-90% of the water used by TSMC is recycled water.

(Image source: EE Times)

TSMC's Nansho Water Recycling Plant started construction in 2020 and is expected to start supplying recycled water in 2021. It will be able to supply about 10,000 tons of recycled water per day, which will help TSMC gradually reduce the use of tap water and achieve diversified water resource utilization. TSMC said that by 2024, the Nansho Water Recycling Plant will be able to supply 20,000 tons of recycled water per day. Together with the water supply from Tainan Anping Recycling Plant and Yongkang Recycling Plant, the Nansho plant will use 67,000 tons of recycled water per day. The project has entered the final stage and water supply has not yet started.

TSMC President Wei Zhejia has said that Taiwan's water supply is indeed tight, mainly due to a lack of rain, but the company has been working with the government to ensure adequate water supply.

It is understood that thanks to various efforts, TSMC's industrial wastewater recycling rate has reached 85%, and the utilization rate of every drop of water has exceeded 350%, which means that on average every drop of water is used 3.5 times by TSMC.

Multiple measures are taken to deal with water shortage, and semiconductor companies are operating at full capacity

According to statistics from Austrian data company World Data Lab, 2.4 billion people in the world live in areas with water scarcity. The United Nations also pointed out that by 2030, water shortages will cause 700 million people to be displaced. Water shortage crises are happening frequently around the world.

Since the beginning of this year, Taiwan has been experiencing its first drought caused by a lack of typhoons in 56 years. As an important center for chip manufacturing development, it faces severe threats from natural disasters such as water shortages and earthquakes.

Taiwan has been actively responding to the drought. In October last year, the water department took drought mitigation measures to strengthen water supply by saving more water, finding more water sources and using water more efficiently. Semiconductor companies are operating at full capacity. In January 2021 (before the drought began), Taiwan's semiconductor exports totaled US$11.92 billion, an increase of 46.3% compared to the same month in 2020. In March, when the drought began, Taiwan's semiconductor exports totaled US$12.15 billion, an increase of 24.4% from the previous month. In the first half of this year, Taiwan's total exports amounted to US$206.9 billion, of which semiconductor exports alone amounted to US$71.1 billion in the first half of the year. Such growth shows that Taiwan has the ability to appropriately respond to the challenges posed by the drought.

In addition, between 2010 and 2020, Taiwan's semiconductor exports increased from US$50.7 billion to US$122.5 billion. During the same period, the proportion of semiconductor exports to mainland China and Hong Kong, China also gradually increased from 52% to 61% last year.

Source: Core Master

Recommended Reading

Using two large cores at once, can Google's self-developed Tensor processor really "beat Qualcomm"?

TSMC's 5nm factory in the United States, which has been in operation for half a year, now looks like this

Tsinghua Unigroup's restructuring has made important progress: seven investors plan to participate in the strategic investment, with debts reaching hundreds of billions

Who is hoarding automotive chips and driving up prices? China and the United States take turns to curb it, and TSMC is forced to clean itself up

Reply to any content you want to search in the official , such as problem keywords, technical terms, bug codes, etc., and you can easily get relevant professional technical content feedback . Go and try it!

Since the WeChat official account has recently changed its push rules, if you want to see our articles frequently, you can click "Like" or "Reading" at the bottom of the page after each reading, so that each pushed article will appear in your subscription list as soon as possible.

Or set our public account as a star. After entering the public account homepage, click the "three small dots" in the upper right corner, click "Set as Star", and a yellow five-pointed star will appear next to our public account name (the operation is the same for Android and iOS users).