Applied Materials Receives IC Industry Award

I am very pleased to report that for the second time this year, Applied Materials was honored for our breakthrough iSYS subfab technology, receiving the EuroAsia IC Industry Subsystems & Components Award, presented last week at the SEMICON Europa show in Dresden. In July, iSYS was named Sustainable Technology of the Year by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI).

The awards come as customers demand energy reductions beyond roadmap deliverables for 2012 – typically 30%. Subfab energy accounts for about 40% of total factory energy consumption during device production.

iSYS reduces subfab energy consumption by more than 20% and overall fab energy consumption by more than 8%. Whether a tool is running a process, idle or being cleaned, power, gas and water use is kept to a minimum – lightening a customer's carbon footprint and lowering customer costs.

Synchronized with an Applied process tool, for example, iSYS can deliver typical annual savings of 200 megawatt hours of energy, which translates into avoiding 220,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, compared to currently available configurations. So if a typical fab were to outfit just its CVD tools with iSYS, the savings can add up to more than $2 million a year.

iSYS removes redundant layers of equipment and synchronizes the operation of these devices from a central controller interfaced to the process tool. Therefore, energy consumption is matched to process demand, reducing energy per wafer pass. There are further benefits in an integrated package: faster startup, predictable operation, repeatable spares, smaller footprint and automatic calculation of the carbon footprint by totaling process gases for greenhouse gas reporting.

The EuroAsia IC Industry Awards are sponsored by EuroAsia Semiconductor magazine. They are voted upon by 25,000 magazine and website readers who work for more than 100 companies in the semiconductor and chip equipment industries.