PhD in Engineering – Life Cycle Assessment of New Semiconductor Technologies

The semiconductor industry underpins the digital transformation that affects all businesses, industries, and value chains, playing a critical role in delivering the UNs’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Furthermore, the demand for semiconductor devices will increase tremendously with booming artificial intelligence, autonomous robots, smartphones, and autonomous electric vehicles, ultimately resulting in greater expansion of the semiconductor manufacturing plants, and consequently, a huge increase in energy consumption. To date, the evolution of semiconductor technologies has been driven by performance, power usage, and cost; however, future devices must also follow a sustainable manufacturing approach. This issue is particularly pertinent as, for example, 65% of the lifetime cradle-to-grave Global Warming Potential (GWP) of a Samsung smartphone is caused just by the manufacturing of Integrated Circuits (ICs), which is largely Scope 2 & 3 emissions. The ICs often go to waste at the End-of-Life (EoL) as over 83% of Waste Electrical and Electronics Equipment (WEEE) is not recycled. ICs are also a supply chain weakness and entirely reliant on offshore manufacturing, so assessment of the supply chain will yield additional results on how the UK can be less impacted by global shocks to the supply chain

In this PHD project, a student will evaluate the environmental impact of the fabrication processes in modern and next-generation semiconductor technologies using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approaches. The student will focus on developing LCA assessments of two key semiconductor technologies with strong relationship to UK industry; a power SiC MOSFET and an edge-emitting laser. To do this, inventories will be collected for various semiconductor processes including epitaxial growth, fabrication, packaging, and material recovery and end-of-life. Detailed material usage, chemical processes and energy inputs will be sourced from industrial partners and the James Watt Nanofabrication Centre/ANALOGUE packaging facility if information is not available. After extensive inventory development, the student will build an LCA within the Minviro software system. This will be tested and refined in collaboration with industrial partners. A key challenge will be developing LCAs with missing data especially around specialised chemicals which he used in the microelectronics industry. A variety of approaches will be used including linking to costs, material substitution and the use of chemical proxies. The final stage of this project will be to use the data required in order to inform future eco-design principles. This would allow new fabrication processes to be developed that reduce the overall environmental impact of our two demonstrator devices. The results would be largely informed by the results achieved from the LCA assessment.

For informal enquiries, please email Prof Jeff Kettle at [email protected]

How to Apply: Please refer to the following website for details on how to apply:

http://www.gla.ac.uk/research/opportunities/howtoapplyforaresearchdegree/.