A Life-Cycle Energy and Inventory Analysis of FinFET Integrated Circuits

The manufacturing of modern semiconductor devices involves a complex set of nanoscale fabrication processes that are energy and resource intensive. There is a need for a comprehensive analysis of environmental impacts when an innovative new manufacturing approach emerges for semiconductor circuits. FinFET devices, a special kind of quasi-planer double gate devices, have been introduced as the next-generation semiconductor technology. This paper is the first attempt in reporting the life-cycle energy and inventory analysis of (double gate) FinFET integrated circuits. To make these results relevant, we have performed a comparative lifecycle analysis with the latest bulk CMOS technology. An inventory analysis is provided accounting for manufacturing, assembly, and use-phase. The functional unit used in this work is a processor with pre-specified levels of functionality and performance. Also, two types of applications are considered for this comparison: high-performance servers and low-power mobile devices. The results show that (i) FinFET circuits consume less use-phase energy compared with conventional CMOS counterparts, and (ii) FinFET circuits consume less manufacturing and assembly energy because the effect of smaller size outweighs that of more complex manufacturing process.