Climate change has been a ghost looming over modern society for years. Still, now, we’re starting to experience its consequences directly. Floods, stronger hurricanes, and earthquakes are affecting cities and stopping worldwide commerce, affecting all kinds of industries, from food and minerals to SI wafer manufacturers.
While we’ve discussed the effects of wars and commercial disputes on wafer manufacturers several times on this website, we haven’t yet discussed factors beyond human control. To analyze this situation, we’ll review some of the key supply bottlenecks in the wafer industry and how climate change’s impact may affect them.
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The way we live and work is changing because of the climate crisis, and most industries' businesses are already feeling this. The semiconductor industry is no exception.
Temperature rises, technology shutdowns, drops in productivity, and natural disasters are already affecting manufacturers worldwide and their supply chains, increasing the fear of buyers and governments already struggling with the long-lasting wafer shortage.
This disruption occurs at a time when the demand is only growing, driven by the need for AI servers and advanced electronics. Moreover, wafers play a big role in reducing climate change, as they’re a main component of elements like solar panels that help reduce carbon dependence. Reducing the impact of climate change on the wafer industry is fundamental. It’s important to understand how it affects us, so let’s go over some of the negative effects.
The frequency and intensity of hot days are increasing, which is one of the many effects of climate change. For instance, between 1957 and 2000, there were five days in rapidly modernizing India with an average dry-bulb temperature above 35°C (95°F). But between 2075 and 2100, the Hadley model (HadCM3) projects that India will see 75 of these days in an average year.
The same model forecasts that during the same time, the number of such days in the US will increase from 0 to 29.
Severe heat can be uncomfortable, exhausting, and even impair cognitive function, among other negative effects on human activities. This has proven to negatively affect workplace productivity.
A study conducted on 35,190 employees of a Chinese wafer manufacturer indicates that an increase in wet bulb temperature of 10∘C results in an 8.3% decrease in productivity.
The wafer industry is a great place to analyze the impact of climate change on industries. Because the wafers are delicate, sophisticated climate control systems have been installed in every workshop to guarantee quality. The temperature and relative humidity in workshops are maintained at 25∘C (77∘F) and 60%, respectively.
However, studies have shown that the decrease happens even if the manufacturer’s workspaces are indoors and protected by high-quality climate control systems. That’s because heat can potentially impact people beyond the workplace, affecting their health or undermining their recovery capacity. We all have had nights of tossing and turning due to the extreme heat, after all. All of this can impact a country’s economic outcomes considerably.
While some diseases affect only humans, heat is troublesome for machines, too. High outdoor temperatures affect high technology, which can be severely harmful in precision manufacturing settings.
Elevated temperatures gradually deteriorate electronic components, resulting in decreased efficiency and shortened lifespans for your gadgets. Moreover, machines generate their own heat, making the temperatures around them even hotter.
Electronics that overheat frequently undergo thermal throttling, in which they purposefully slow down to cool down. This may result in observable performance problems like lag and slower processing rates.
Frequent exposure to high temperatures will eventually result in irreversible damage, reducing your devices' dependability and effectiveness. This may seriously harm servers, PCs, and other electronic devices, resulting in diminished functionality or possibly irreversible harm.
While innovative phase-changing fluid cooling designs can help with machine cooling, heat is still ultimately released into the atmosphere in most situations. Therefore, maintaining a machine that is cool enough to operate effectively becomes more difficult the hotter the air.
This year, Taiwan experienced one of the biggest earthquakes in decades, with 7.2 points of magnitude. From the moment it was announced to its finalization, the entire world stood at vile, and not only due to an emerging feeling of empathy.
90% of the world's most cutting-edge semiconductor chips are made at the ASMC factories in Taiwan. Fortunately, none of the factory's vital instruments were harmed. However, the incident did highlight a flaw in the semiconductor industry's supply chain: The top countries that supply semiconductors are in the Southeast region of Asia, where natural disasters are common and political tensions are constantly on the rise.
Despite billions of dollars governments and chipmakers spend to diversify chip production, the process is not moving quickly enough. Additionally, while diversifying the supply chain can help reduce risks, it doesn’t mean that manufacturers will be free of natural disasters.
For example, Hurricane Helene's flooding in North Carolina has stopped the mining of ultra-pure quartz, which is essential to the world's semiconductor supply chain. Up to 90% of the world's ultra-pure quartz comes from North Carolina. Moreover, the region's transportation routes have sustained damage, which could further postpone the delivery of quartz to manufacturers.
The real critical weakness in the global semiconductor supply chain is the tendency to rely on one location for critical components. This means that any disruption caused by natural disasters can have ripple effects on a global scale.
The semiconductor industry faces several challenges. While specialization benefits it by reducing production costs and making technology more accessible, we’re now experiencing the consequences of focusing the production of key assets in one single location.
In the short run, we can expect a reduction in wafer production worldwide, which will lead to an increase in the prices of technology products. In the long run, this can impact the world’s economy.
While it won’t provide immediate relief, diversifying the industry and finding various providers to depend on can reduce the damage. If you’ve been looking for a local semiconductor manufacturer, Wafer World is here for you. Contact us to learn more about our products!
