Building a semiconductor factory requires enormous quantities of land and energy, then some of the most precise machinery on Earth to operate. The complexity of chip fabs, as they are called, is one reason why the US Congress last year committed more than $50 billion to boost US chip production in a bid to make the country more technologically independent.
But as the US seeks to boot up more fabs, it also needs to source more of a less obvious resource: water. Take Intel’s ambitious plan to build a $20 billion mega-site outside Columbus, Ohio. The area already has three water plants that together provide 145 million gallons of drinking water each day, but officials are planning to spend heavily on a fourth to, at least in part, accommodate Intel.
Water might not sound like a conventional ingredient of electronics manufacturing, but it plays an essential role in cleaning the sheets, or wafers, of silicon that are sliced and processed into computer chips. A single fab might use millions of gallons in a single day, according to the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET)—about the same amount of water as a small city in a year.
Chip companies hoping to take advantage of the CHIPS and Science Act, last year’s federal spending package aiming to boost US chip manufacturing, are now constructing new water processing facilities alongside their fabs. And cities trying to attract new factories funded by the legislation are studying the potential impact on their water supplies. In some places it may be necessary to secure the water supply; in others, new infrastructure must be installed to recycle water used by fabs.
“Local leaders need to engage in candid conversations with their city’s water resources staff and economic development staff to ensure that any new high-volume user is a good fit with the community,” says Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University.
In some places, fab-prompted upgrades to water infrastructure are already in the works. Columbus plans to open its fourth water plant sometime in 2028, just a few years after the Intel site is scheduled to start producing its first chips. The city says a new water facility, which will collect water from the nearby Scioto River, is needed to support the area’s growing population—including Intel, which is set to become the area’s largest consumer of water.
Several states away in dry Arizona, the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), plans to build a new water recycling facility to support its new fabs under construction in Phoenix—while also, it appears, sourcing some water from nearby rivers and water infrastructure. To prepare for a $100 million fab built by memory chip maker Micron in upstate New York, there are already massive water storage tanks, which can each hold about 15 million gallons.
The chip industry’s thirst for water springs from the need to keep silicon wafers free from even the tiniest specks of dust or debris to prevent contamination of their microscopic components.
To give chips their quintessential circuits, fabs use incredibly powerful lithography tools, which etch intricate patterns into silicon sheets called wafers. Eventually, these large discs of processed silicon need to be sliced into individual computer chips small enough to be packaged into our phones and computers. Throughout these processes, the chips accumulate residue that needs to be removed by washing it away with water.
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