In hot summer, it is easier to lack electricity and water.
You already know how many kilowatt-hours it takes to make a chip, and you want to know how much water it carries.
The same goes for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the industry leader—TSMC.
According to TSMC’s 2021 annual report:
- (1) a wafer’s water consumption is about 120 liters/photomask (12-inch wafer), the average 7-nanometer chip has more than 60 photomask numbers, so a 7-nanometer 12-inch wafer chip manufacturing down the need to consume about 7 tons of water, a 7-nanometer chip equivalent to the consumption of 12 liters of water;
- (2) TSMC 2021 manufactured about 14 million wafer chips (equivalent to 12-inch wafers), considering the number of photomasks of different processes is not the same, the average count of 50 photomasks, TSMC needs to consume 7x50x1400 = 4.9 billion tons of water a year
- (3) Note that because the demand for water resources is too large, the fabs generally find ways to reuse water resources, typically at least 3.5-4 times the reuse rate, so TSMC down is considered to have consumed close to 20 billion tons of water resources, equivalent to the capacity of four Taihu Lake.
END.
P.S.: Taihu Lake Volume: 1.032 cubic miles
