U.S. semiconductor giant Intel announced in March that it plans to spend $20 billion on two new chip plants in Arizona. Separately, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) said it was going to build a $12 billion factory in Arizona, and chief executive C.C. Wei said Wednesday that construction had already begun. The Grand Canyon State may not, however, seem like the most obvious place for a chip “foundry” or “fab” since the high-tech manufacturing plants guzzle millions of gallons of water every day. At present, in the face of climate change, Arizona is facing a deepening water crisis and some of the state’s all-important aquifers have an uncertain future. Arizona received just 13.6 inches of rainfall on average per year between 1970 and 2000, according to the NOAA National Climatic Data Center, making it the fourth driest state nationwide.
“Water is a key element in semi manufacturing, but the infrastructure has been put in place [in Arizona] to ensure adequate supply to meet the industry’s current needs,” Alan Priestley, vice president analyst at tech research firm Gartner. A factory or “fab” for making semiconductors needs a lot of water to operate. It’ll guzzle between 2 to 4 million gallons of water a day by some estimates, using the water to cool down equipment and clean silicon wafers. That’s about as much water as 13,698 to 27,397 Arizona residents might use in a day. Fabs are also pretty picky when it comes to water quality, they need to use “ultra-pure” water to prevent any impurities from damaging the chips.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/04/why-intel-tsmc-are-building-water-dependent-chip-plants-in-arizona.html
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