Managing water infrastructure for semiconductor fabs: Challenges and opportunities in the CHIPS Act era

The CHIPS Act spurring domestic investment in semiconductor manufacturing, more municipalities are finding themselves on the receiving end of a new fab campus or pending fab expansion.

Almost all freshwater entering a fab will leave as wastewater, and that wastewater needs to go somewhere.

Almost every municipality in New York state that has secured, or may secure a fab project, will need to upgrade their wastewater resource recovery facilities.

A sizeable fab campus could discharge well over 100,000 pounds of TDS per day from various operations including chemical use in the fab, pH adjusting of scrubbers, ion exchange resin regenerations for ultrapure water production and wastewater pretreatment.

The CHIPS Act incentivizes the onshoring of semiconductor manufacturing across the country.

In the end, the work to maintain this relationship will pay off. Many communities have successfully found a happy balance between technological innovation and effective wastewater treatment and reuse ( Chandler , Arizona ; Albuquerque , New Mexico ; Tyler , Texas ; Boise , Idaho ; Malta , New York ; and Hillsboro , Oregon come to mind). Not only will the community have an economic engine and a constant job creator, it will also have a partner who is also invested in environmental stewardship and water sustainability..