Passivating for Greater Semiconductor Efficiency and a Sustainable Future
Sustainability at the Heart of Our Innovation
At Comptek, sustainability is more than a benefit of our passivation technology— it is a core objective driving our business and R&D operations. Our breakthrough Kontrox technology significantly reduces semiconductor waste and enhances manufacturing efficiency, helping to curb the environmental impact of the semiconductor industry.
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Recognizing the urgent need for more sustainable practices in the semiconductor industry, we are dedicated to addressing the sector's substantial carbon footprint, which rivals that of the automotive industry. Key challenges include unsustainable manufacturing processes and low power efficiency of semiconductor devices. These issues result in high CO2 emissions and excessive use of hazardous chemicals, water, and raw materials.
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By focusing on cutting-edge technology and sound environmental management, we strive to contribute positively to the industry's efforts to lower its ecological footprint, not only through our technology but across all aspects of our operations, promoting innovative R&D initiatives that align with global sustainability objectives.
Environmental Impact of Our Passivation Solutions
Optimizing Semiconductor Manufacturing
enables a tremendous
With Kontrox, the performance of multiple semiconductor devices - such as microLEDs, lasers, and RF power amplifiers - is increased to staggering levels thanks to unprecedented atomic-level defect reduction. This improvement allows for substantial reduction of chips' size while maintaining their performance levels.
By increasing the chip output per wafer, the number of wafers needed is reduced, enabling manufacturers to drastically lower manufacturing costs and minimize the amount of energy, natural resources, and waste involved.
opportunity to decrease manufacturing volumes thanks to a substantial reduction in chip size
For µLEDs, taking the chip size from 40µm down to 20µm would reduce the number of semiconductor wafer required to one-third.
3,01 M units/wafer*
8,37 M units/wafer*
* based on Murphy’s Model of Die Yield; assuming epiwafer size of 4", die width & height of 0,05mm, scribe lanes of 0,005mm, and edge loss of 5mm. The image is representative and does not reflect the actual semiconductor epiwafer.
Key Enabler for microLED - Advancing Sustainable Display Technology
Since displays are the most significant source of energy consumption in the majority of consumer electronic devices, replacing the existing OLED and LCD displays with microLED would have an enormous positive environmental impact.
Producing enough large-screen microLED TVs (60” and up) to fulfill the current global demand would require almost 100 Million of 6-inch wafers annually. With today's average manufacturing yield of 30%, this amounts to 288 Million wafers, translating into striking amounts of resources:
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Electricity consumption: 93 TWh/year
Wastewater: 4,8B kg
Solid waste: 2B kg (over 50% of it hazardous)
By enabling the replacement of OLED & LCDs with highly efficient microLEDs, Kontrox can help cut associated energy consumption and waste generation to nearly a third.
Semiconductor wafers:
288M 96M
By applying Kontrox in the microLED chip manufacturing process, these can be cut down to nearly a third, enabling a much-needed shift in semiconductor manufacturing sustainability.
Maximizing Semiconductor Device Efficiency
In addition to driving substantial energy savings through optimized semiconductor manufacturing and enabling advanced microLED technology, Kontrox significantly enhances semiconductor materials used in RF power amplifiers, VCSELs, and sensors found in billions of devices.
Today, smartphones alone are estimated to consume up to 6,000 GWh of energy per year — more than the output of a large nuclear plant — primarily due to the various essential semiconductor components they utilize. With Kontrox, the total energy consumption of an average smartphone device can be reduced by up to 35%* — a remarkable impact when applied on a global scale.
* Based on estimated energy consumption of various semiconductor components in a smartphone.