PFC Emission Reduction in the Semiconductor Industry

Semiconductor chips are found in nearly everything today, and with the rise of the Internet of Things, they will appear in even more things! The manufacture of these devices requires the use of PFC gases, which are used as a convenient source of fluorine for material removal purposes, both in etch processes (where typically silicon is selectively removed through a photolithographic mask) and chemical vapour deposition (CVD, where typically thin layers of silicon are deposited-fluorine-based gas chemistry is subsequently used to remove collateral deposits from the process chamber walls). The industry, under the auspices of the World Semiconductor Council (WSC), recognised that PFC's were powerful GHGs at an early stage and proposed voluntary reductions in emissions, initially with a 2010 timeline, and subsequently 2020. This paper considers these factors and the measures that manufacturers can deploy towards achieving these industry expectations.