Industry heavies Google, ASM and HP have joined the Catalyze program, which was first sponsored by Intel and Applied Materials earlier this year under the direction of Schneider Electric.
The program is designed to encourage semiconductor industry suppliers to collaborate and focus on accelerating access to renewable energy. Participants are urged to make commitments to decarbonization and collectively move to procure renewable energy with the buying power of their cohort.
“Transitioning to carbon-free semiconductor manufacturing is critical to reducing global emissions and no company can do it alone,” said Michael Terrell, senior director of energy and climate at Google in a statement.
“The planet needs urgent and decisive action to reduce the impacts of climate change,” said Ernest Nicolas, chief supply chain officer at HP. HP has committed to cut its end-to-end value chain emissions in half by 2030 while still delivering innovation technology to customers.
Schneider Electric Chairman Jean-Pascal Tricoire said the decision by ASM, Google and HP to joined Catalyze will help accelerate the decarbonization of supply chains. Scope 3 emissions have proven a challenge to track and manage, he said, but the Catalyze program is designed to help companies and their suppliers collaborate on energy transition and decarbonization.
ASM, headquartered in the Netherlands, makes wafer processing equipment used to fabricate semiconductors. John Golightly, vice president of sustainability at ASM, said the large scale of Catalyze will make a difference. “If we tried to this alone with our suppliers it could never equal the impact and scale of the Catalyze program,” he said.
The production of semiconductors is highly energy intensive, made even moreso with the ramp to produce AI chips for generative AI and other high performance computing data center needs. Industry trade group SEMI tabulated that semiconductors produced in 2021 globally are expected to contribute 500 megaons of CO2 equivalent over their lifetime, with the majority coming from device usage.
One of the goals of Catalyze is to provider industry suppliers with the opportunity to participate in the market for utility-scale power purchase agreements.
Schneider Electric unveiled Catalyze in July at the SEMICON West event.
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