EUV lithography machine consumes too much power, which is worrying

Latest update time：2024-11-01

Reads：

????If you hope to meet more often, please mark the star ?????? and add it to your collection~

Source: Content compiled from TechInsights, thank you.

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is critical to modern process technology and semiconductor manufacturing for years to come. However, with each EUV tool consuming 1,400 kilowatts of power (enough to power a small city), EUV lithography systems have become significant power consumers with an environmental impact.

TechInsights believes that by 2030, the annual power consumption of all fabs equipped with EUV tools will exceed 54,000 gigawatts (GW), which is more electricity than many countries such as Singapore or Greece consume annually.

Current low-NA EUV scanners require up to 1,170 kW of power, while next-generation high-NA tools are expected to require up to 1,400 kW each (according to TechInsights). The number of such machines installed in fabs operated by Intel, Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix, and of course TSMC increases every year.

TechInsights believes that by 2030, the number of fabs equipped with EUV scanners will increase from 31 today to 59, and the number of operating equipment will roughly double. Therefore, all installed EUV systems will consume 6,100 GW of electricity per year, which means that by then there will be hundreds of machines in operation.

6,100 GW/year of electricity consumption (about the size of Luxembourg) isn’t a lot. However, manufacturing each advanced chip requires more than 4,000 steps, and there are hundreds of tools in a fab. EUV equipment accounts for about 11% of total fab electricity use, with other tools, HVAC, facility systems, and cooling making up the rest. Therefore, the electricity consumption of all fabs equipped with Low NA and High NA EUV tools increases to an estimated 54,000 GW/year.

To put that into context, 54,000 GW of electricity per year is about five times the amount of electricity that Meta’s data centers will consume in 2023. It’s also more than Singapore, Greece, or Romania consume in a year, and more than 19 times the amount of electricity that the Las Vegas Strip consumes in a year. However, while that’s a significant amount of electricity, it only represents 0.21% of global electricity consumption in 2021 (25,343,000 GW/year), a fairly small share.

It is easy to extrapolate that if 59 cutting-edge semiconductor production facilities equipped with EUV tools consume 54,000 GW per year, each facility would consume 915 GW per year, comparable to the power consumption of a state-of-the-art data center.

With the number of EUV-equipped fabs expected to nearly double by 2030, and electricity consumption expected to more than double, power infrastructure will face major challenges because even today companies like AWS, Google, Meta, and Microsoft are struggling to find places to build megawatt and gigawatt data centers because the grid must be able to handle them.

Electricity-eating monster, EUV lithography machine

Recent articles have warned of the impact of artificial intelligence on chip manufacturing power consumption. However, the specific semiconductor manufacturing processes that will drive this demand are still unclear. Semiconductor manufacturing requires more than 100 different types of process tools, of which extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tools are the most expensive and energy-intensive. EUV tools represent the latest advance in the industry, which can cram more transistors into a square inch of silicon wafers to meet the needs of processing artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and autonomous driving applications.

Photolithography, which involves printing transistor patterns onto silicon wafers, has been used in semiconductor manufacturing since the late 1950s. Over the decades, the industry has gradually adopted shorter wavelengths of light to print smaller transistors, with 193nm deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography being the workhorse for the past 20 years.

The light used in EUV tools has a wavelength of 13.5 nanometers, far beyond the visible spectrum, which represents an exponential increase in the complexity of semiconductor manufacturing. This light does not occur naturally on Earth. It must be produced using a high-powered laser that strikes a tin droplet to create a plasma, which then emits the necessary light. In an EUV tool, this intense light source passes through multiple lenses or reflects off mirrors, absorbing energy as it passes through the machine. For the current generation of EUV tools, maintaining this light source and the vacuum environment required for processing requires up to 1,170 kW of power per tool. The next generation of EUV tools will feature High Numerical Aperture (High NA) and are expected to require up to 1,400 kW of power per tool.

TechInsights is currently tracking 31 fabs using EUV lithography, with an additional 28 fabs set to implement EUV by the end of 2030. This will more than double the number of EUV lithography systems, which means more than 6,100 gigawatts of electricity will be needed per year for EUV systems alone. In real-world terms, that’s more than twice the amount of electricity the Las Vegas Strip uses in a year.

While there are more than 500 companies producing semiconductors, only a handful have the capacity, need, and skills to support EUV lithography systems, which has implications for energy grids in specific regions. Fabs using EUV systems in high volume manufacturing (HVM) include: Taiwan (TSMC and Micron), South Korea (Samsung and SK Hynix), Japan (Micron), Arizona (Intel and TSMC), Ohio (Intel), Idaho (Micron), Oregon (Intel), New York (Micron), Texas (Samsung), Germany (Intel), and Ireland (Intel).

The chart shows the forecasted growth in annual electricity consumption for EUV tools in high-volume manufacturing facilities around the world.

It’s important to note that this chart only shows the power consumption of EUV tools, not the total power required by the fab. In fact, EUV tools only account for about 11% of the total power consumption of the fab. Other process tools also require power, as well as facility equipment, including pumps to support cleanroom tools and complex HVAC systems to maintain cleanroom temperature, humidity, airflow, and purity. All in all, the total power required for 58 fabs using EUV lithography technology could exceed 54,000 gigawatts per year, which is equivalent to 19 times the annual electricity consumption of the Las Vegas Strip and could burden the power grids in Taiwan, South Korea, and the United States.

The rapid adoption of EUV lithography in semiconductor manufacturing marks a major technological leap, enabling the production of smaller, more powerful transistors that are critical to artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and autonomous driving. However, this progress has a considerable impact on energy consumption. By 2030, the number of EUV-equipped fabs will more than double, and electricity demand will surge, posing challenges to power infrastructure and sustainability. The semiconductor industry, policymakers, and energy suppliers must collaborate to develop innovative solutions that balance technological advancement with environmental stewardship.

Reference Links

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/each-euv-chipmaking-tool-consumes-as-much-power-as-a-small-city-euv-fabs-to-consume-54-000- gigawatts-by-2030-more-than-singapore

END

????Semiconductor boutique public account recommendation????

▲Click on the business card above to follow

Focus on more original content in the semiconductor field

▲Click on the business card above to follow

Focus on the trends and developments of the global semiconductor industry

*Disclaimer: This article is originally written by the author. The content of the article is the author's personal opinion. Semiconductor Industry Observer reprints it only to convey a different point of view. It does not mean that Semiconductor Industry Observer agrees or supports this point of view. If you have any objections, please contact Semiconductor Industry Observer.

Today is the 3933rd content shared by "Semiconductor Industry Observer" for you, welcome to follow.