IN Brief:
- CEA-Leti and International SubFAB Research Labs have launched an industry-funded research platform in Grenoble.
- The first phase will characterise gaseous and aqueous waste streams, measure material use, and establish monitoring methods.
- HORIBA, TOFWERK, and Edwards Vacuum are participating, with additional treatment and abatement research planned from 2027.
CEA-Leti has launched SubFAB Labs, an industry-funded research programme designed to investigate chemical emissions, waste treatment, and material efficiency in semiconductor manufacturing.
Developed jointly with International SubFAB Research Labs (ISRL), the programme is operating at CEA-Leti's pilot facility in Grenoble, France. Its first phase will characterise gaseous and aqueous waste streams generated by semiconductor fabrication processes and establish a reference database for developing and validating monitoring and treatment technologies.
HORIBA, TOFWERK, and Edwards Vacuum are among the first participating industrial companies. The programme provides an experimental environment in which equipment suppliers and research organisations can assess technologies under manufacturing-relevant conditions without introducing unqualified equipment directly into active commercial fabrication lines.
Semiconductor production involves repeated deposition, etching, cleaning, and other material processing operations. These activities use specialist gases, liquids, and chemical compounds, while generating exhaust streams and residues that must be managed by the factory's supporting infrastructure.
Much of that infrastructure operates beneath the cleanroom in the subfab, where vacuum pumping, gas treatment, abatement equipment, and waste handling systems support the production machinery above. Its performance influences the environmental impact of semiconductor manufacturing, but changes to these systems can be difficult to evaluate while a commercial factory is operating.
The chemical composition of a waste stream can vary considerably between processes. Different precursor materials, operating temperatures, plasma conditions, and cleaning cycles influence which compounds are produced, their concentrations, and the rate at which they enter the exhaust system.
Consequently, an abatement technology that performs well against one chemical mixture may not deliver the same result under another. The relevant measurements must establish which substances are present, how their concentrations change during processing, and what reaches the downstream treatment equipment.
SubFAB Labs will address these questions using CEA-Leti's existing pilot line. The research environment is operated in a mode intended to reproduce high-volume manufacturing conditions, providing an opportunity to conduct extended measurements and equipment evaluations under more representative conditions than a short laboratory experiment.
The first phase, planned to run for up to four years, will investigate material-use efficiency and the by-products associated with the principal semiconductor manufacturing process families. Its results will support a reference database identifying the composition and concentration of process emissions and the materials that move through the waste handling infrastructure.
A monitoring system combining several sensor technologies will be developed to measure emissions at different points in the treatment chain. Comparing measurements near the process equipment with those taken further downstream can help establish how individual compounds are transported, transformed, or removed.
Such measurements also require confidence in the instruments themselves. Chemical sensors and analytical equipment may experience changing response characteristics under varying temperatures, concentrations, and process conditions. Contamination, calibration drift, and interactions between chemical species can influence the results obtained during extended operation.
HORIBA will participate in testing and qualification of monitoring systems across different semiconductor processes and waste handling stages. Its involvement includes evaluating how measurement equipment performs during prolonged operation, rather than relying exclusively on short-duration tests of instrument sensitivity.
TOFWERK, a Bruker company based in Switzerland, will apply its time-of-flight mass spectrometry technology to process by-product monitoring. This technique separates and measures ions according to their mass-to-charge characteristics, providing information about the chemical species present in a sampled stream.
Mass spectrometry can support detailed chemical characterisation, although the reliability of individual measurements depends on sampling arrangements, instrument calibration, and the characteristics of the substances being analysed. The programme will provide an environment for evaluating those factors during semiconductor process operation.
Edwards Vacuum will use the research platform to study waste streams and evaluate real-time abatement strategies. Its work will examine how more detailed emissions information can support treatment arrangements that respond to the particular substances produced by different semiconductor manufacturing steps.
Effective abatement must also be compatible with the wider subfab. Changes to treatment equipment can affect exhaust handling, equipment reliability, maintenance requirements, and safety arrangements. A reduction in one measured emission cannot be assessed independently of the additional resources, operating conditions, or downstream effects introduced by the treatment process.
The programme follows discussions across the semiconductor supply chain, with approximately 20 industrial partners having endorsed the initiative during an industry summit in Tokyo in 2025. CEA-Leti and ISRL have established the Grenoble platform as a shared research environment intended to support pre-competitive development and qualification.
Four further research phases are planned from 2027, addressing PFAS treatment and technologies associated with etching, deposition, cleaning, and polishing. These activities will involve prototype evaluations, measurements of emissions reductions, and assessments of the effects on waste handling, safety, and operating costs.
Those later phases have not yet produced verified environmental performance results. The first phase is intended to establish the chemical and measurement data necessary to identify which technologies should be developed, tested, and qualified.
CEA-Leti's Grenoble cleanroom operates continuously and contains more than 80 pieces of equipment dedicated to semiconductor process, component, and circuit research. The programme will use that infrastructure to generate measurements over extended periods and develop models for applying the results to commercial fabrication facilities.
The initial work will establish an emissions catalogue, material-use measurements, and reference monitoring methods. Subsequent testing will determine whether proposed treatment systems can deliver measurable improvements while maintaining the reliability and safety requirements of semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure.
