Nov. 24, 2025 –
By Neil Tyler, New Electronics
At SEMICON Europa, imec delivered a very clear message: sustainability is no longer a downstream concern for fabs and packaging houses, rather it’s becoming a design parameter.
For engineers shaping the next generation of chips, this shift is set to redefine how we think about performance, cost, and environmental impact, according to imec.
For many years semiconductor innovation has been measured by PPAC – that is Power, Performance, Area, and Cost – and imec is now proposing to add an “E” for Environmental impact.
Through its imec.netzero platform, imec is embedding Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) into the earliest stages of technology development, which means that engineers will soon have access to bottom-up emissions models for processes like lithography and etching, enabling them to identify carbon hotspots before a single wafer is processed.
The introduction of an “e-score” metric is significant as it allows designers to weigh environmental impact alongside traditional trade-offs, influencing material choices, device architectures, and even packaging strategies. For design engineers, this is a paradigm shift: sustainability becomes quantifiable, actionable, and integral to design decisions.