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Our green design "revolution"
In 1965, three Texas Instruments (TI) engineers set out to accomplish the impossible: to design the world's first handheld calculator. Five years later, the Pocketronic hit the market and ignited a revolution in math and engineering classrooms worldwide.
Decades later, TI facility engineers again attempted to tackle the impossible, but on a different frontier: manufacturing. The results of their effort – the development of the world's first green wafer manufacturing facility – have revolutionized both the company's and the industry's approach to building facilities.
A change in design
Imagine building a new house and considering not just the architecture or style but its operating costs and impact on the environment. You might spend some time figuring out ways to reduce the costs of electricity, water and natural gas.
Most people don't give these monthly costs much concern because utilities are used on a relatively small scale. But over time, expenses can add up. On a much larger scale, in semiconductor manufacturing, operating costs can easily exceed the expense of construction alone. A typical fabrication plant (fab), for example, consumes as much energy as 10,000 homes, costing millions of dollars a year.
Reducing resource consumption and operating efficiently lowers costs and provides a competitive advantage. That's why the principles of conservation and efficiency have long been critical in our facility operations.
The Richardson endeavor
In 2004, TI engineers pushed sustainable thinking a giant step forward. They set out to build the world's first green wafer fabrication facility.
The result was a 1.1 million-square-foot building, located near Dallas on a 93-acre former wheat field. The building showcases passive solar innovations, including roofs that use a white reflective coating to reduce heat. It employs as much daylight as possible and uses motion sensors to make that sure that lights are not left on unnecessarily. The surrounding fields have been returned to their native habitat and are irrigated only by rainwater.
In addition, the building is very space-efficient, allowing TI to save more than $180 million in construction costs and – when the plant is running at full capacity – $4 million in operating costs a year. Also, by using energy recovery systems that eliminate the need for hot water boilers, the building uses 20 percent less energy and 35 percent less water, resulting in a 50 percent reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions.
By 2008, the facility had earned the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Gold certification.
The ideas behind the Richardson, Texas, fabrication facility (RFAB) "caught fire internally," said Paul Westbrook, TI's manager of sustainable development. "I was overwhelmed by the number of people who would call and e-mail and ask if there was anything they could do to help promote sustainability."
Going global
From now on, all new TI buildings will be LEED certified.
In 2008, the same year that RFAB earned LEED Gold certification, we opened our second LEED-certified new building.
The 178,000-square-foot, four-story assembly/test operation is located at an existing site in Baguio City, Philippines. It achieved LEED Silver certification and is the first LEED-certified building in the country.
The new operation uses reclaimed water for toilet flushing, and the building is filled with energy-saving light fixtures and natural day lighting. It was constructed using low volatile organic compound sealants, paints and coatings. Some 85 percent of TI Philippines employees take mass transit to and from the site, a consideration that LEED evaluates.
TI is now building a second LEED-registered assembly/test facility in the Philippines. The Clark Freeport Zone-based operation will be completed in the summer of 2009.
The building will showcase best practices from the two previous buildings, as well as focus on energy-efficient forms of cooling and drying air.
"We have made a big jump," Westbrook said. "We are doing some good things and it is starting to become culturally ingrained."
Spreading the word
The LEED Gold certification that RFAB achieved also generated enthusiasm in the semiconductor industry.
As a result, the International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI), an industry consortium, formed a green fab working group to explore the creation of industry-specific LEED standards. The group soon discovered a problem.
"The LEED standards for its Existing Buildings rating system relies on Energy Star scores," Westbrook explained. "But Energy Star scores don't exist for semiconductor manufacturing facilities."
So the team plans to create an equivalent measurement system.
"We are working to develop some common standards and a common database," Westbrook said. "A manufacturer could input their facility's square footage, gas use and water use and get a score to compare themselves to other fabs."
In addition to the consortium, Westbrook shares his green building knowledge and TI's experience whenever asked.
"We share our experience and help other companies interpret LEED requirements, along with other members of the working group," he said. "We obviously have the most direct material to provide for the case studies."
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