Evaluating the environment, safety and health impacts of semiconductor manufacturing at the design and process development stages

Design for the Environment Health and Safety (DFESH) is the integration of ESH principles into the Semiconductor product´s life cycle. The DFESH program fulfills the key semiconductor industry ESH roadmap strategic issues of ESH design tools and ESH integration into the manufacturing process. This SEMATECH project is designed to delineate the strategy for this integration. The project consists of four elements: (1) Developing a semiconductor industry DFESH strategy (or an industry bluebook on DFESH). The product of this element is the roadmap for DFESH in the semiconductor industry. (2) Determining a set of semiconductor industry DFESH metrics and assessing the current state of the semiconductor industry. This element allows the project´s customer to measure their progress in implementing DFESH. (3) Developing a set of DFESH tools to assist management and engineering in integration of DFESH into new process/materials selection. The three DFESH tools currently under development are: (A) A risk assessment tool which assists process engineering in chemical and process selection. (B) process materials/energy balance tool for semiconductor equipment and factory modeling. This tool is to assist in chemical and process selection as well as assessing material and energy use. (C) An Environmental Safety and Health (ESH) Cost of Ownership model which determines the cost and return of implementing ESH requirements. (4) Creation of a DFESH training and communications program which educates member companies and supplier staffs on philosophy. This paper will provide an overview of the SEMATECH DFESH program, and highlight the chemical risk assessment model´s progress to date