Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty Management in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories

PFC, HFC, NF3 AND SF6 EMISSIONSFROM SEMICONDUCTORMANUFACTURINGA C K N O WL E D G E M E N T S
This paper was written by Scott C. Bartos (USEPA) and C. Shepherd Burton (ICF, Incorporated). Several
reviewers made valuable comments on draft versions of this paper, including Sally Rand (USEPA), Bill Irving(USEPA), and Dina Kruger (USEPA).

ABSTRACTSix fully fluorinated compounds and one hydrofluorocarbon are widely used by the semiconductor industry:
tetrafluoromethane (CF4), hexafluoroethane (C2F6), octafluororopane (C3F8), octafluorobutane (c-C4F8), suflur
hexafluoride (SF6) nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) and trifluoromethane (CHF3) 1. Collectively, these gases will betermed fully fluorinated compounds (FFCs) for ease of discussion in this paper. Semiconductor manufacture uses
FFCs in two critical processes: for cleaning chemical vapour deposition (CVD) chambers and for dry etching.
Depending on the complexity of the product, the manufacturing process may require up to 100 FFC-using steps
and up to 3 months process time. The Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories(IPCC Guidelines) do not provide specific guidance on how to estimate FFC emissions from semiconductors.
Good practice in inventory preparation for the semiconductor industry presents challenges at all levels: factory,
national and third party verification. At the factory level, estimation of potential emissions based on production
capacity or FFC use may introduce inaccuracies due to a number of factors related to the complexity of the
production process, the variability of emissions with product types, and the rapidity with which processes change
in this dynamic industry. For similar reasons, measurement of actual FFC emissions from semiconductor
manufacture is extremely challenging, and depending on the level of accuracy desired, potentially very costly.
Through voluntary programmes, a significant portion of the global industry is endeavouring to estimate annual
FFC emissions. Several facility level emission measurement methods have been devised and used. Through theefforts of the World Semiconductor Council, industry leaders in Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the UnitedStates are working towards adopting a common emission measurement method.
At the national level, there is no common inventory method currently in use, and reporting has been problematicfor this source. It appears that some countries have not reported FFC semiconductor emissions, and reports ofother Parties lack transparency (UNFCCC/SBSTA/1998/7). Currently, emissions are reported under the IPCC
category 2F6 Other (Industrial Processes Halocarbon/SF6 Consumption). Because there are a number of FFCs
used in semiconductor manufacture, with different global warming potentials (GWPs) and in different quantities,
emissions of different species cannot be summed and reported on a mass basis. They can be aggregated on acarbon equivalent basis, but this does not allow for reconstruction of the inventory since a third party will notknow the share of each gas. Unless reporting of semiconductor emissions under “Other” is explicitly specified
there may be problems with transparency because emissions from other undesignated industrial sources such as
SF6 used by electrical utilities would also be reported on this line.
Industry concern for confidential business information may complicate the desire for clear and transparent
national reporting. Many semiconductor manufacturers consider chemical purchase and emission information as
proprietary data. Countries may need to establish a confidential data tracking and reporting system to ensuresensitive data is not released to the public or presented in a way that reveals company-specific information.
Unless a country has fewer than four manufacturers, aggregation of data should eliminate any concerns ofrevealing proprietary process information. CVD and etch tool manufacturers also consider tool-specificemissions characterizations as proprietary. Depending on the emissions estimation method used, this may makedocumentation and third party evaluation difficult.

1

Several other HFCs, including difluoromethane (CH2F2) and 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane (C2H2F4) also find some
application; however, their use is less than 1% of the total, and so they will not be further considered here.

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Quality Assurance/Quality Control activities will need to occur at several steps in the process. At the factory
level, key elements are internal quality control on factory-level emissions, and documentation of data andmethods for reviewers. The inventory agency must ensure the accuracy of factory submissions as well as theaggregated inventory. The inventory agency is also responsible for providing documentation and reporting
sufficient information to the UNFCCC. One or more different types of external reviews and audits may also beappropriate for semiconductor inventories, and each will require complete documentation.
The desired outputs and key questions related to these three areas have been discussed broadly in the generalbackground paper, and are summarized in a short paper entitled, “Outputs and Questions for Breakout Groups.”

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1
1.1

INTRODUCTION
Nature, magnitude, and distribution of source

Semiconductors or integrated circuits act as the brains for advanced electronic controls and devices, which havebecome increasingly prevalent in consumer and industrial equipment in recent years. Computers, for example,
contain information controllers, memory and processing devices, and they are also found in vehicles, appliances,buildings, and industrial processes. The use of fully fluorinated compounds (FFCs) in the semiconductor industry
first began to occur in the late 1970’s; however, their use did not become widespread until the late 1980s or early
1990s, as a result of the need to create increasingly smaller more complex devices. As the industry continued its
practice of exponentially increasing the functionality of semiconductor devices by making them simultaneously
smaller and more powerful, new manufacturing processes were needed. The processes that allowed
manufacturers to create these smaller, more complex features rely on FFCs for both cleaning and etching
functions. Six fully fluorinated compounds (FFCs) and one hydrofluorocarbon are currently widely used by thesemiconductor industry: tetrafluoromethane (CF4), hexafluoroethane (C2F6), octafluororopane (C3F8),
octafluorobutane (c-C4F8), suflur hexafluoride (SF6) nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) and trifluoromethane (CHF3) 2.
Information on these chemicals is summarized in Table 1.
TABLE 1
SEMICONDUCTOR PROCESS GASES
Species

Chemical
FormulaAtmospheric
Lifetime (years)

Global Warming Potential (100year time horizon)

PerfluoromethaneCF450,0006,500

Perfluoroethane

C2F6

10,0009,200

Perfluoropropane

C3F8

2,600

7,000

Perfluorocyclobutane

c-C4F8

3,200

8,700

Trifluoromethane (HFC-23)

CHF3

264

11,700

Nitrogen Trifluoride

NF3

740

8,000

Sulfur Hexafluoride

SF6

3,200

23,9001.1.1 Description of FFC use
Manufacturing semiconductor devices is complex, and FFCs are used at several points in the process 3. The
manufacturing process begins with a semi-conductive crystalline wafer, usually made of silicon. This wafer
travels through a dust and particle-free production area called a clean room, cycling through various pieces ofmanufacturing equipment or “tools”. Many of these tools deposit thin layers of insulating and conductive
materials via chemical vapour deposition (CVD) and etch intricate patterns into the successive layers of
insulating films and metal. The patterned insulating metal layers act to connect (i.e., to wire together or integrate)
the active components that comprise the device or integrated circuit (IC). A single wafer, from start to finish, may
require as many as 100 distinct FFC-utilizing process steps, and up to 3 months of process time.
FFCs are used for both plasma cleaning of CVD chambers and plasma (dry) etching of the thin insulating andmetal layers. The FFCs allow manufacturers to accurately etch the submicron-scale patterns on these metal anddielectric layers and perform rapid chemical cleaning of CVD tool chambers. The carbon and fluorine that thesecompounds deliver in a plasma are essential when etching advanced integrated circuits because, in addition toetching, they form polymers, which allow for highly selective and anisotropic (directional) film removal.
2

Several other HFCs, including difluoromethane (CH2F2) and 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane (C2H2F4) also find some
application; however, their use is less than 1% of the total, and so they will not be further considered here.

3

Much of the material presented in this Section may be found in Burton and Beizaie, “EPA’s PFC Emissions
Vintage Model (PEVM) v. 2.14: Deswcription and Documentation”, prepared for USEPA, Office ofAtmospheric Programs, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20460 (November 2001).

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Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) chambers – often called CVD tools − are the industry workhorses fordepositing materials that will act as insulators and wires. Commonly deposited CVD films include polycrystalline
silicon, silicon nitride, silicon dioxide, and metals such as tungsten. To eliminate buildup of these materials oninternal chamber parts and the concomitant risk of contamination, periodic chamber cleans must be performed.
CF4, C2F6, C3F8 and NF3 are the usual FFCs used in chamber cleaning. During the clean cycle, the FFC isconverted to F atoms in a plasma, which chemically etches away residual material from chamber walls,
electrodes, and chamber hardware. However, due to the low destruction efficiency (high dissociation energy) of
FFCs, a portion of the gas flowing into the chamber during the clean is not dissociated into F-atoms and,
therefore, not used to clean the chamber: that unreacted portion flows through the chamber and, unless emission
abatement technologies are used, eventually into the atmosphere. Of the total FFC emissions from semiconductor
manufacturing, roughly >60 percent (million metric tons of carbon equivalent or MMTCE basis) results fromchamber cleaning steps.
Once the electronic components (e.g., transistors) have been fabricated in the silicon, thin conducting material isadded – the minute wires − to interconnect individual circuit components. In complex devices the length of thiswiring will exceed 4 km per cm2 of device area. The pathways for these wires are etched into the insulating layers
using another industry workhorse – etch chambers or etch tools. These etch tools also use FFCs in a plasma. In
etch tools, both F-atoms and polyatomic species such as CF2 are created and react at the film surface (following
prescribed patterns) to selectively remove (etch) substrate material. Etch processes are used to form, for example,
trenches that are subsequently filled with metal to form the wires. CF4, CHF3, C2F6, C3F8, c-C4F8, NF3 and SF6
are etching gases. In some etching processes it is important that certain CF-containing polymers are formed on
surfaces, which permits highly selective and directional removal of film material. So, depending on the etch
process, either CF-containing FFCs are used or simply SF6. In etch processes, on average, more of the FFCs isutilized, so less of the original FFC exits the chamber unreacted and is emitted into the atmosphere. Of the total
FFC emissions from semiconductor manufacturing, roughly <40 percent (MMTCE basis) result from plasma
etching steps.
In addition to being directly used in manufacturing processes, FFCs can also be transformed during cleaning andetch processes. Put simply, during the process, an FFC input of one gas can be transformed into a different FFC
which is exhausted to the atmosphere. For example, when either CHF3 or C2F6 are used in either cleaning or
etching CF4 is generated and emitted as a process by-product. In the C2F6 case, the amount of CF4 produced canbe 10% to 30% of the C2F6 input volume depending on the cleaning process. In the case of CHF3, reports indicatethat approximately 10% (volume) of the input CHF3 is converted to CF4 and smaller yields of C2F6 have also
been measured.
A medium size U.S. manufacturing plant (called a “fab”) has approximately 60 etch and CVD tools. For a large
fab, the number of etch and CVD tools increases, ranging from 100 – 200[3,4]. Of the total number of tools,
roughly 60 percent are for etching and 40 percent are used to produce thin films via CVD. A large fab may havea production capacity of approximately 360,000 to 480,000 eight-inch wafers per year and may manufacture
approximately 70 - 300 million chips, depending on product yield, feature size, and chip size. Annual FFC
emissions for a fab can range between 0.001 to 0.05 MMTCE.
Since its inception, the semiconductor industry has successfully developed “smaller and faster” products. Smaller
circuit components operate faster, require less energy and generate less heat. State-of-the-art semiconductors
incorporate circuitry with feature sizes approaching 0.18µm, which decreases by a factor approximately 0.7 every
2 – 3 years. The complexity of these products increases as manufacturers continue to shrink feature sizes. Circuitdesigners use multiple layers to interconnect the densely packed circuit components. Each layer of metal (wiring)and dielectric (insulating) material that is deposited and patterned upon the wafer requires specific FFC process
steps. Thus, the complexity of a semiconductor product qualitatively correlates with the required number of CVD
and etch (i.e., FFC-utilizing) process steps. Generally, as semiconductor devices increase in complexity, so does
the quantity of FFCs (per square centimeter of silicon) required for manufacture.
It has been reported that semiconductor manufacturers also use FFCs in heat transfer applications. Companies
that manufacture flat panel displays and microelectronic mechanical systems (MEMS) also use FFCs in plasma
applications that are similar to those of the semiconductor industry. There is little published information about
these two applications and their utilization of FFCs.

4

Individual semiconductor manufacturing tools can have multiple FFC-using chambers. Presently, a single tool
can have from one to four process chambers but the number of chambers alone does not directly relate toemissions.

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1.1.2 Magnitude of FFC emissions
There is limited published information on the magnitude or trend of global FFC emissions from thesemiconductor industry. Available information on the U.S. industry may provide some insights, however, andthus this section describes the U.S. situation.
Sales of FFCs to the U.S. semiconductor industry over the 1990-1996 period show a compounded annual growthrate across all species of approximately 30 percent. In 1996 approximately 1000 tons (900 metric tons) of FFCs
were purchased by the U.S. semiconductor industry for use at approximately 170 fabs 5. Prior to 1990, FFC sales
to the U.S. semiconductor industry were very small, less than 100 tons per year. This rapid growth in FFC use isdue to: (a) increased worldwide demand for semiconductor devices, (b) the increase in semiconductor device
complexity, and (c) the lack of viable alternatives to FFCs.
The Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-1996 reports FFC emissions for 1996 at 1.4
million metric tons of carbon equivalent.. The U.S. 1996 Inventory method used gas-specific U.S. sales figures,
gas-specific average market prices and estimates of weighted average gas-specific emission factors to(approximately) account for the variation in use between chamber clean and etch processes. This estimate of 1.4
MMTCE appears comparable to the corresponding 1996 emissions estimates provided by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) voluntary semiconductor industry partners after adjusting for thefraction of U.S. FFC sales attributable to the partnership’s participants.
Using the 1996 U.S. emission estimation method, the corresponding estimate for global semiconductor industry
FFC emissions is 3.9 MMTCE (based on world FFC sales to the industry and using the same average market
price and emissions factors)6. Anecdotal reports from gas suppliers indicate that global and U.S. growth rates of
FFCs purchases slowed somewhat beginning in late 1997, which is attributed to slowing demand for advanced
semiconductors devices.

1.1.3 Distribution of semiconductor industry sources
Semiconductors are produced by approximately 400 organizations around the world in 1,100 fabs ranging in size
from small research and development sites to large production plants. The manufacturing capacities of these fabs
can vary by a factor of up to 300. Approximately 150 of these organizations currently operate the 350 fabs in the
U.S., of which approximately 280 are pilot and production fabs operated by or for the U. S. Government andcommercial companies. Not all fabs use large quantities of FFCs to manufacture semiconductor devices due
mostly to their size and/or product distribution. For example, it is estimated that approximately two-thirds tothree-fourths of the FFC emissions from the U. S. semiconductor are generated by approximately 40 percent of
the 350 fabs.
As a general rule of thumb, semiconductor devices with feature sizes 1µm and smaller are major users of FFCs.
Figure 2 depicts the distribution of world semiconductor production capacity of devices with feature sizes 1µm andsmaller by country for 1996 (expressed as percentage of potential total silicon production). This distribution may beconsidered a rough approximation or proxy of the distribution of potential FFC emissions from world semiconductor
manufacturing. In descending rank order, the countries with the top capacities are: Japan, United States, South
Korea, Taiwan, United Kingdom and Germany (tied at 5 percent each), Singapore, China and Italy (tied at one
percent each), which in the aggregate account for approximately 95 percent of global production capacity.
Unlike some industrial processes, neither semiconductor production capacity nor sales data is a good proxy for
actual emissions. Actual emissions vary with plant utilization, product type and complexity. For example, one fab
may manufacture a different distribution of products or more chips of greater complexity than a similar fab
manufacturing an identical volume of silicon (and therefore require a different distribution of and/or greater
volume of FFCs in their manufacture).

5

The distribution (wt %) of the 1996 purchases and the corresponding 1992 – 1996 compound average growth
rates (%), provided parenthetically, for each of the seven gases of interest are: CF4 = 28 (38), CHF3 = 11 (38),
C2F6 = 47 (35), C3F8 = 0.4 (25), C4F8 = 0 (0), NF3 = 4 (35), and SF6 = 9 (20).

6

Estimates for the European countries were obtained by allocating an estimate for Europe’s total emissions
according to country-specific potential silicon production capacities.

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Figure 2

1996 global production capacity for semiconductor
devices with feature seizes less than or equal to 1
micronDistribution of Global Semiconductor
Production Capacity
Other
China Italy 5%
1%
1%
Singapore
2%
United Kingdom
5%Germany
5%

Japan
38%

Taiwan9%South Korea
10%

United States
24%

Source: SEMI International Fabs.on Disk, October 1998

Work recently presented by Beu and Brown (1998) suggests that the distribution of FFC use by manufacturing
process (i.e., CVD clean vs. etch) may be an important consideration in estimating FFC emissions 7. In this paper,
the authors compare the differences in FFC emissions estimates using methods of varying complexity. Beu andBrown present a “typical” fab with unabated FFC emissions that total 0.036 MMTCE (or about 2 percent of the1996 U.S. total). The range in average gas-specific emissions across the seven gases identified in Table 1 (See
Summary above) is 1% (for C4F8) to 48% (for C2F6) (MMTCE basis) of the total 0.036 MMTCE for both clean
and etch processes using the method for estimating emissions preferred by the authors 8 . The variability inaverage gas-specific emissions (MMTCE) for either the plasma clean or plasma etch processes is even greater, 0(for NF3) to 66% (for C2F6) for the total emissions from plasma clean processes and 3% (for both C3F8 and C4F8)
to 59% (for SF6) of the total emissions from the plasma etch processes. With such variability, care is needed informing and interpreting averages.
Collecting gas usage data and determining process-specific emissions factors is a complex task for thesemiconductor industry. When determining gas usage, it is very important that the residual gas left in “empty”
cylinders (known as the heel) and returned to the chemical supplier be accounted for accurately9. Other importantfactors such as the types of FFCs used and process specific emission factors change frequently with process
improvements in this dynamic and competitive industry. Data collection of this type is more difficult for thisindustry than industries where manufacturing processes and technologies are less variable.

1.2

The current state of inventory methodologies

At the national level, there is no common inventory method currently in use, and reporting has been problematic forthis source. The methods, assumptions and data used to estimate FFC emissions from semiconductor manufacture in
the National Communications are not clear, transparent or well documented. The lack of transparency and

7Beu, L. and Brown, P. T., An Analysis of International and U.S. PFC Emissions Estimating Methods presented
at SEMICON SouthWest 98, Austin, Texas, USA, October 1998.

8

It is important to keep in mind that the emissions factor from the use of any specific gas represents an average
taken over several tools used to etch various films or to clean chambers after the production of various films.
Thus, emission estimates and emissions factors used to estimate emissions are, strictly speaking, weighted
according to the amount of a specific gas used by that tool for a specific process.

9

At this time the fate of the residual FFCs is not certain. A portion of the residual gases may be vented directly tothe atmosphere.

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supporting documentation of methods and data makes review and verification impossible. It is unclear whether all
countries with semiconductor industries have reported FFC emissions (UNFCCC/SBSTA/1998/7).
In part, problems with estimating emissions from this source may arise because the IPCC Guidelines do notprovide specific guidance on how to estimate FFC emissions from semiconductors. The IPCC Guidelines do,
however, describe two general methods for estimating emissions from industrial sources, which can be applied tothe semiconductor industry as follows:•

Tier 1 (potential emissions): national FFC usage in the country based on supply and trade data), and•Tier 2 (actual emissions): actual FFC usage emission factor, for each FFC, potentially including direct
reporting of actual FFC emissions estimates by all sources

The United States, Japan, Europe, Korea and Taiwan have established national/regional voluntary action plans orpartnerships to estimate and report annual FFC emissions using various methods resembling either Tier 1 or Tier
2 methodologies. These voluntary programmes represent the most developed emissions estimating methods
currently available but no one method is used consistently from country-to-country.
The World Semiconductor Council (WSC), which represents semiconductor industry associations from the U.S.,
Japan, Europe, Korea, and Taiwan, has made FFC emissions reduction its primary environmental concern andhas begun evaluating the various emission estimating methods practiced by its members. The WSC has adopted acommon method and practice for estimating FFC emissions. Although not all manufacturers participate in the
WSC, if successful, this initiative would result in a fairly large set of comparable emissions data for this sector.

2
2.1

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES
Selection of good practice methods

As discussed above, the IPCC’s general methods can be used in several ways to estimate emissions from thesemiconductor industry. At the most basic level, countries have a choice between using a Tier 1 (potential) method,or a Tier 2 (actual) method. Within Tier 2, there are several possible approaches that vary in terms of accuracy andresource requirements. Each of the broad approaches is described below, and summarized in Table 2.
TABLE 2METHODS TO ESTIMATE EMISSIONS FROM THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY
Estimating Method
Tier 1

Data Requirements
FFC purchase data

(Potential)
Tier 2:
Level 1
SimpleMethod Features
Very simple and precise
Highly inaccurate

National emissions factor for all gases andprocesses – individual factors may be supplied
by tool manufacturers
FFC purchase data

Emissions factor will require annual reevaluation
Still inaccurate, since specific processes are notreflected in emission factors
Country specific conventions for FFC
byproducts/returned gas

Tier 2:
Level 2Average
Tier 2:
Level 3Specific“Average” emission factors by gas and process
type (CVD and etch)

Detailed, annual survey/analysis required todetermine emission factors

FFC usage data by process/gas

Still fails to consider differences amongst
specific fab-level or tool-level processes

Specific emission factors for each fabprocess/tool

Most labor intensive and costly in terms of datacollection

Fab-level (or process level) gas usage

Most accurate

Tier 1: Potential Method
Under Tier 1, it is assumed that FFC emissions are equal to their use by the semiconductor industry. Thus, forthis method, it is necessary to obtain data on annual FFC-specific gas usage (purchase less unused) by theindustry. While this method could be used when actual emissions data are unavailable, the resulting estimate is
likely to be inaccurate (i.e., overstate emissions) by as much as a factor of two. This method fails to account for
both gas utilization during the manufacturing process and the potential transformation of input FFCs into

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different FFCs during the process. Acquiring the gas usage data may also present difficulties, although either
market surveys or reporting by semiconductor manufacturers (or gas producers) could be undertaken.
Tier 2: Actual Method
Three broad approaches are possible for estimating emissions using a Tier 2 method. Currently, Levels 1, 2, 3 arebeing further evaluated by both industry and government. Levels 1 and 2 represent a technical compromise
relative to Level 3, which is the most advanced method. The principal technical issue in the choice between
Levels 1, 2 and 3 is the amount of aggregation of parameters that is necessary.
Level 1: Simple Mass Balance
Tier 2, Level 1 is a simple mass balance approach that essentially adjusts the Tier 1 estimates to take into accountthe fact that all FFC purchased by the semiconductor industry is not emitted. Under this method, gas purchasedata is multiplied by gas-specific emission factors that reflect the fate of the gas during device manufacture.
While this method is more accurate than Tier 1, it relies on several broad assumptions. First, use of a single
emission factor for all FFCs within a country vastly oversimplifies the highly variable nature of FFC use within
the industry. Second, careful consideration would need to be given to this factor to ensure that it appropriately
accounts for both the destruction and the transformation of FFCs within the process. Third, unused gas (i.e.,cylinder heel) must be accounted for when developing the emissions factor. Finally, as with Tier 1, acquiring gas
usage data may be challenging.
Level 2: Average Mass Balance
The Tier 2, Level 2 method attempts to address some of the weaknesses in Level 1 by obtaining additional data.
Under this approach, “average” emission factors for each gas would be developed for the two broad process
types, etch and clean, rather than using a single national factor for each gas. A factor representing the “average”
quantity of unused gas and an FFC byproduct formation factor should improve this method’s accuracy. In thisway, differences in by-product formation and specific gas usage for etch and clean processes could be reflected.
While this approach should be more accurate than Level 1, it will require much more detailed data on gas usage
at the process level and that may be costly to track and gather in either medium or large fabs. In forming
averages, appropriate consideration should be given to weighting the factors and usage quantities.
Level 3: Specific Mass Balance
Tier 2, Level 3 is the most accurate and data-intensive approach. Under this approach, specific FFC emission
factors are developed for each gas and tool/process in a fab, from direct one-time utilization measurements under
actual production process conditions.
The FFC emissions from a specific tool are estimated using tool/process-specific estimates of FFC utilization.
Utilization (a fraction) is the measured quantity of FFC utilized or chemically altered during a clean or etch process.
The complement of utilization (1- utilization) is called the tool’s emissions factor for the specific process conditions.
Changes in process- to improve product quality, yield, throughput, etc.- will affect utilization and emissions.
Recently tool manufacturers and fabs began implementing process changes to increase FFC utilization (i.e., decrease
emissions). Process changes made by both tool manufacturers and by fabs that increase utilization could be adopted,
provided compromises (if any) in quality, yield and throughput are acceptable. These utilization factors are secrets
closely guarded by both tool manufacturers and semiconductor manufacturers.
This method can directly account for FFC by-product formation and actual (or engineering estimates of) FFCspecific usage for that tool/process. The challenge in this approach is that it requires tracking and gathering oflarge amounts of data, which may represent a substantial cost from a fab’s perspective that does not improve thequality or efficiency of the products it is designed to produce. The high administrative burden and potential costappear to be the principal detractions from its adoption.

2.2

Emissions factors

In the context of the semiconductor estimates, emission factors refer to the FFC output per unit FFC input. As thediscussion of methodologies indicates, developing emission factors for this industry is extremely complex. Unlike
some industrial sources, direct continuous measurement of emissions is not currently viable for this industry.
Measurements of emissions factors (averaged over several production simulations) are provided to
semiconductor manufacturers by the tool manufacturers under terms of nondisclosure. Gas suppliers also makeemissions factor measurements, either under contract to the tool manufacturers or to the fab. These measurements
are typically made under what is called centerline (or nominal) process conditions (i.e., nominal flow, power and250

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pressure, etc. settings). However, once operating in full production, many manufacturers alter process conditions
from the centerline conditions.
Although tool specific information is held confidential by tool and semiconductor manufacturers, it is generally
accepted that FFC gas utilization varies widely by tool and process. For example, for SF6 used in an etch process,utilization is believed to range between 5% and 50% (volume). Reports of CF4 utilization, depending on whether
the CF4 is used in cleaning or etching processes (and in the case of etching with other FFC gases), vary between
5% and 20%.
The transformation of FFCs during manufacturing processes must also be accounted for. As mentioned
previously, when either CHF3 or C2F6 are used in either cleaning or etching, CF4 is generated and emitted as aprocess by-product. In the C2F6 case, the amount of CF4 produced can be 10% to 30% of the C2F6 input volume
depending on the cleaning process. In the case of CHF3, reports indicate that approximately 10% (volume) of the
input CHF3 is converted to CF4 and smaller yields of C2F6 have also been measured.
The situation is even more complex because many clean and etch processes use FFC gas mixtures. For example,
mixtures of C2F6 and NF3 are used in some cleaning processes and in some etch processes mixtures of CHF3 andCF4 or mixtures of CHF3 and SF6 are used. In these instances, not only does utilization change from the single
gas case, but the product formation yields change also.
Because many fabs use multiple etch processes and several cleaning processes, developing and using a single
average emission factor for one fab may not be appropriate for another, even if operated by the same company.
Estimating an appropriate emission factor for all FFC gases used in a fab that makes several products using
different processes is a complex data gathering exercise.

2.3

Activity level data

For this sector, activity data refers to FFC gas usage. The use of Tier 1 and Tier 2 methodologies presumes that
activity level (i.e., gas usage) data is available. It is not evident that FFC gas usage data is maintained by countries
and, if it is, with breakout for the semiconductor industry. The use of SF6 for example by the Semiconductor industry
is small compared to the use by either electrical utilities or magnesium producers, assuming that either of theseindustries operate in that country. There may be similar problems for the other FFC gases.

2.4

Uncertainty

Parallel to the IPCC sector-specific workshops on good practice guidance, the IPCC is completing a programmeof work on emissions inventory uncertainty. This work will result in recommendations to the IPCC on approaches
to assessing and managing uncertainty. During the IPCC Inventory Experts Group Meeting in Paris (October1998), technical experts in the uncertainty programme developed a series of questions to be answered in the
sector workshops. These questions are presented in the general background paper. The sector workshops should
provide answers to these questions in the individual source context, to inform work of the uncertainty programmeon establishing a general methodological approach.

2.5

Completeness

The IPCC Inventory Experts Group Meeting (October 1998) reported that national inventories of FFC emissions
displayed varying levels of completeness. The semiconductor industry is not identified as a category of FFC
emissions in the IPCC Guidelines (see for example, Section 2.17, Table 2-26). There is, therefore, no description
provided by the IPCC about this source and its processes that produce atmospheric emissions of FFCs. A
suggested reporting format is described in section 3 below.
The broad global distribution of fabs in more than 25 developed and developing countries presents a challenge toconstructing a global emissions estimate for this industry. A useful tool for identifying semiconductor fabs bycountry is the International Fabs on Disk database, made available and updated quarterly by Semiconductor
Equipment and Materials International (SEMI). Complete inventory reports would include emissions estimates for
all fabs using FFCs. This subset of a country’s industry must first be identified. The general rule mentioned above
relating FFC use to fabs manufacturing devices with feature sizes less than or equal to 1µm is most likely not precise
enough for this determination. Confirmation through discussions with individual manufacturers may be useful.

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Background Paper

Current annual emissions from U.S. fabs range between approximately 0.001 to 0.05 MMTCE, or between
roughly 0.05 to 2 percent of the annual 1996 estimate of total FFC emissions from the u.s. semiconductor
industry. The only u.s. companies that appear to be estimating FFC emissions are participants in the EPA
partnership, which in total account for approximately 70 percent of the total u.s. semiconductor industry’s FFC
emissions (see Table 3).
TABLE 3
PARTNERS IN THE US ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY’S PFC EMISSION REDUCTION PARTNERSHIP FOR THE
SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY•

Advanced Micro Devices•

Micron Technology, Incorporated•

American Microsystems, Incorporated (AMI)•

Motorola, Incorporated•

Burr-Brown Corporation•

National Security Agency•

Cherry Semiconductor Corporation•

National Semiconductor Corporation•

Digital Equipment Corporation•

NEC Electronics Incorporated•

Dominion Semiconductor, LLC•

Philips Electronics North America Corporation•

Eastman Kodak Company•

Rockwell Semiconductor Systems•

Hewlett-Packard Company•

STMicroelectronics, Incorporated•

Hitachi Semiconductor•

Sony Semiconductor Company of America•

Intel Corporation•

Symbios Logic, Incorporated•

International Business Machines Corporation•

Texas Instruments, Incorporated•

VLSI Technology, Incorporated•

LSI Logic Corporation•

Lucent Technologies, Microelectronics Group

Several more companies are considering joing thepartnership

As of January 19, 1999, the twenty-five (25) companies have joined the voluntary programme.

2.6

Other important issues

2.6.1 New gases
This dynamic industry continues to explore and develop new chemicals and materials that will allow it to construct
the next generation of superior products. Good inventory practice could include a mechanism for evaluating andreporting FFCs currently in use (e.g. NF3) and future generations that are not listed in current IPCC assessments.

2.6.2 Baseline issues
Experts should consider whether establishing a consistent time series for these estimates will be a problem.

3

REPORTING AND DOCUMENTATION

3.1

Current IPCC reporting guidelines

The IPCC Guidelines are used to guide countries in the preparation and submissions of annual greenhouse gas
emissions inventories to the UNFCCC. The Guidelines establish:•

Standard tables, definitions, units, and time intervals for reporting all types of emissions;•

The necessary documentation to enable comparison of national inventories, including worksheets,reconstruction of the inventory from national activity data and assumptions; and•An uncertainty assessment.

FFC emissions from semiconductor manufacture would be reported in IPCC Table 2: Sectoral Report for
Industrial Processes, which fits into the following classification scheme (Tables.13):
Industrial Processes
2F : Consumption of Halocarbons and Sulphur Hexafluoride

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Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty Management in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories

2F6 : Other
Currently the table does not have a unique entry for semiconductor manufacture, nor does it have chemical
specific entries. Unless reporting of semiconductor emissions under “Other” is explicitly specified there may beproblems with transparency because emissions from other undesignated industrial sources such as SF6 used byelectrical utilities would also be reported on this line. Because there are a number of FFCs used in semiconductor
manufacture, with different global warming potentials (GWPs) and in different quantities, emissions of different
species cannot be summed and reported on a mass basis. They can be aggregated on a carbon equivalent basis,but this does not allow for reconstruction of the inventory since a third party will not know share of each gas.
In addition to the lack of transparency in the emissions estimates reported, there is also a lack of clarity on how estimates
are calculated and what assumptions have been made. Issues to consider in order to address this issue include:•

Reporting of the estimation methodology;•

Reporting of the source and nature of activity data and emissions factors; and•Reporting on QA/QC procedures.

3.2

Confidential business information

The issue of confidential business information may complicate the desire for clear and transparent national
reporting. Company-specific FFC emissions from the semiconductor industry, in either aggregated (across all
FFCs and country-specific fabs) or disaggregated form (by FFC and fab), represent very sensitive information,
which the industry believes to convey business-sensitive knowledge to competitors about manufacturing
processes and production volumes. The industry competes on the basis of quality, cost, time to market, customer
need, and innovation. Countries may need to establish a confidential data tracking and reporting system to ensure
the accuracy of reporting. Unless a country has fewer than four manufacturers, aggregation of data should
eliminate any concerns of revealing company-specific proprietary process information.
The industry’s suppliers of process equipment and gases are similarly competitive, considering tool and processspecific emissions profiles as proprietary. Depending on the emissions estimating method used, this may makethird party evaluation difficult.

4
4.1

INVENTORY QUALITY
Introduction

Inventory quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) is a process that encompasses national inventory, companylevel estimation, and third-party review. A well-developed and well-implemented quality assurance programmefosters confidence in the final inventory results. The common thread throughout the quality assurance process isthe need for thorough documentation and complete transparency. In fact, documentation and transparency are
intrinsic to QA/QC and should not be discussed separately. For example, a government agency responsible forcompiling the national semiconductor industry FFC emissions inventory needs to receive sufficient
documentation of plant-level data and calculations in order to perform its own QA. It also needs to document thenational compilation process and the QC performed on plant data so that it is transparent to external reviewers
and the UNFCCC. In short, each group should have the necessary information with which to fulfill its function.
Figure 3 outlines the flow of information, and the inventory quality process at each step.

4.2

Internal inventory QA/QC systems

4.2.1 Fab/Company-level activities
A QA/QC system at a fab that directly reports its FFC emissions to the government would likely include
documentation of the method for estimating emissions, storage of the raw information for ease of retrieval andsample calculations of reported results. Fabs should also document the QA/QC for gas use tracking systems.

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Background Paper

Figure 3

Key steps in the inventory QA/QC process
Semiconductor Manufacturing Company

Internal QC:

Fab/Company-level measurement and calculations

Documentation:

Fab and company-level information provided to the government agency, andresults of internal QC
Government Agency

Review/QA:

Fab and company-level inputs

Internal QC:

Compilation of national inventory from company-level data

Documentation:

Results of compilation and results of QA/QC

Reporting:

Official submission to UNFCCC
External Review

External Review: External audit; stakeholders, peer & public review of inventory results;
external verification against other data, etc.
Documentation:

Results of external review
UNFCCC Secretariat

External Review: Requires standard format and transparency – ensure consistency with otherinventories and external data

4.2.2 Inventory agency level activities
Governments or agencies should perform QA on input data submissions to ensure the public of the accuracy of thesubmissions. Furthermore, government QC of the compilation process should be achieved. In addition, agencies canperform consistency checks by comparing gas usage information with independently acquired gas purchase records
for the semiconductor industry and by checking the reasonableness of emission factors via confidential surveys withtool manufacturers. Finally, agencies should keep records of their QA/QC activities and publish annually FFC
emissions from the semiconductor industry and the results of agency activities to assure quality.

4.3

External inventory QA/QC systems

Independent third parties, benchmarking groups or the public, under negotiated terms for handling confidential
information could perform external review. Such efforts ensure that inventory methods are being followed
consistently. Confidentiality barriers may be surmounted by both government and industry agreeing to third-party
reviews or audits, under prescribed terms for accessing, examining, manipulating, reconciling differences andreporting the results of the review. In anticipation of such negotiations it should be recognized that many fabs areoperated by multi-national corporations (i.e., single companies operate fabs in several countries) and that not allcompanies are members of all trade associations.
The adoption of a quality assurance/quality control system can ensure that the complex data-gathering,
calculating and reporting processes that comprise inventory preparation produces an inventory in which all
stakeholders have confidence.

5

CONCLUSIONS

Governments face several key challenges when developing inventories of FFC emissions from semiconductor
manufacturing. The newness in FFC use as well as the exceptionally rapid growth rates, the geographical reach,and competitiveness of the semiconductor industry may appear at first to clash with the customary IPCC
expectations for consistency, transparency, and third-party verifiability of country emissions. For example, themost recent IPCC Guidelines for estimating GHG emissions do not provide specific guidance on how to estimate

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Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty Management in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories

FFC emissions from semiconductor manufacturing. Furthermore, in the near term, the feasibility and costeffectiveness of methods for continuously measuring FFC emissions in chemically complex factory waste streams
seems doubtful. Nevertheless, FFC emissions may be estimated consistently at the factory level, using either
simple or relatively sophisticated process mass-balance methods. Two broad methods are available. The firstrequires only specific-FFC gas purchase records. In this method, one assumes purchase equals usage equals
emissions. The second method varies according to the available information about FFC emission factors, which
account for FFC consumption during the process and which may be obtained from the owners of semiconductor
manufacturing process technology. The simplest of the mass balances approaches uses, at the country level, an
overall emissions factor averaged over all gases and processes together with country total FFC purchase records.
The most sophisticated mass-balance approach employs gas- and process-specific emissions factors at the factory
level together with specific gas usage records at the factory level. For any method, transparency and verifiability
issues may be resolved by documenting the method used and through third-party audit procedures.

REFERENCES
Beu, L. and Brown, P. T., An analysis of International and U.S. PFC Emissions Estimating Methods presented
at SEMICON South West 98, Austin, Texas, USA, October 1998.
Burton, C. S. and Beizaie, R. , EPA’s PFC Emissions Vintage Model (PEVM) v. 2.14: Description andDocumentation, prepared for U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Atmospheric Programs, 1200
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20460.
SEMI International Fabs on Disk, October 1998 (Now called World Fab Watch, available from Semiconductor
Equipment and Material International, see www.semi.org
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate change (UNFCCC),UNFCCC/SBSTA/1998/7(www.unfccc.de, official documents, SBSTA)
Methodological Issues: Methodological Issues Identified while processing 2nd National Communications:Greenhouse Gas Emissions note by the Secretariat, UNFCCC/SBSTA 1998

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