The Costs of Making a DRAM Chip

Anonymous Coward writes "Researchers at the United Nations University in Tokyo studied the physical and environmental costs to produce one 32-megabyte DRAM chip. Their conclusion? The UNU team found that to make every one of the millions manufactured each year requires 32 kg of water, 1.6 kg of fossil fuels, 700 grams of elemental gases (mainly nitrogen), and 72 grams of chemicals (hundreds are used, including lethal arsine gas and corrosive hydrogen fluoride)."

Comments

Re:"Used to make..."

[ivan256]

Actually, reusing this water is one of the priorities of a few notable chip manufacturers right now. Not only are we learning how to reduse the amount of water used, but we're cleaning as much of it as we can afterward.

If you ask me, I think the biggest news in this article is that people aren't aware of what goes into making products that they take for granted. It's not like it takes alot of effort to realize that alot of energy and chemicals are required to make microchips. It's just that only a small minority of us actually pay attention.

It's probably mixed with chemicals and sprayed on at some point and then dribbles through catchbasins.

Actually the majority of it is probably used for cooling.

How bad is it really?

[stratjakt]

this sounds like a 'worst case scenario' type of analysis.

I'm not denying that the chip industry isnt doing Mother Nature any favors, but what exactly do these numbers mean?

I mean, I hear from environmentalist types that every glass of water you drink takes 2 glasses to wash and another 2 to rinse it. But, the water doesnt dissappear or become unusable. It makes its way back into the system.

So of 32 kg of water 'used', how much of that becomes contaminated to the point that it cant be re-used? If its a coolant that evaporates as steam, then I don't see the big deal. If its turned into toxic sludge with a half life measured in eons, then it probalby is.

And WRT to fossil fuels, are they directly used in manufacturing, or are we talking how much needs to be burned to create the electricity needed to manufacture? And why talk about fossil fuels, and not Uranium or solar/hydro/wind power? Because it gets more attention? Wouldnt kW/h would be a better measure? What matters is how much energy is expended.

I understand that we need to better watch and control our impact on the environment, but infactual data and meaningless statements like 'it takes 300 bananas to make a wingnut' don't help.