The Circular Future of Semiconductor Facilities

Semiconductor manufacturing has advanced at extraordinary speed. Wafer sizes have increased, chips features have become smaller, cleanliness requirements have become more stringent, and contamination control has shifted from the room itself towards highly controlled mini-environments. The buildings and infrastructure that enable this innovation must evolve just as rapidly – and adapting them is far from simple.

At Deerns, we see this as an important circularity challenge. Even highly engineered cleanroom complexes have a finite economic life. When technologies, business models or capacity requirements change, facilities can become obsolete while still containing valuable materials, technical systems and specialised infrastructure.

The question is, therefore, not only how to demolish a cleanroom responsibly. It is how to design, operate and adapt semiconductor facilities so that their value can be retained across multiple use cycles.

A high-tech asset with a finite life

Semiconductor facilities combine cleanrooms with critical infrastructure such as ultrapure water, process gases, chemical supply and abatement systems, central heating and cooling plants, emergency power and built-in redundancy, all supported by utility distribution networks. These critical systems enable continuous production while minimising downtime.

This makes repurposing difficult. An unused building may remain connected to active utilities serving the wider site. Before dismantling, systems must be separated without affecting production, safety or compliance. Components and materials can then be removed, sorted and prepared for reuse or recycling.

3 principles can improve future outcomes:

• Design facilities as modular layers that can be adapted independently
• Record materials, locations and treatments in digital material passports
• Avoid permanent connections where demountable alternatives meet technical requirements

Designing for disassembly

Material selection in cleanrooms is governed by demanding criteria. Products must support hygiene, fire safety and contamination control requirements while avoiding unacceptable emissions. These constraints can encourage composite products or bonded assemblies that are difficult to separate.

Raised floors may combine aluminium and PVC, while cables contain copper within polymer sheathing. Cleanroom walls glued or sealed into permanent assemblies can become mixed demolition waste. Demountable systems, by contrast, allow panels, frames and valuable metals to retain a higher value route into reuse or recycling.

Semiconductor facilities contain large quantities of stainless steel, copper and aluminium. Even filter fan units, which combine metals, plastics, insulation and paper, may be economically dismantled when thousands of identical units are available.

Circular design should therefore address 3 key factors:

• Accessibility for maintenance, replacement and removal
• Standardised components that can be refurbished or redeployed
• Clear material separation to avoid low-grade recycling streams

Looking beyond the building fabric

Beyond material recovery, some of the largest circularity opportunities in semiconductor facilities lie in equipment, process utilities, and resource flows. Chillers, heating equipment and demineralised water systems are generally built from durable components. Updating controls, refrigerants or selected parts can extend their service life and reduce capital demand and raw material consumption.

Rejected production wafers may become monitor or dummy wafers and later support other applications. Packaging is another target: cleanroom materials often arrive double wrapped, creating waste that recyclable or reusable systems can reduce.

The greatest opportunities often sit within 3 resource flows:

• Recovering helium, krypton, neon and, potentially, hydrogen
• Treating lightly contaminated rinse water for safe process reuse
• Separating acids, solvents and fluoride containing wastewater for recovery

Ultrapure water systems can achieve high reuse rates where sufficient space and treatment infrastructure are available. Future advances may also enable recovery from more challenging streams, including chemical-mechanical planarisation slurries.

Energy remains the difficult equation

Energy demand is an exception to many circularity trends. While advanced chips continue to improve energy efficiency, increasingly complex manufacturing processes and the rapid growth of AI-driven data centres are increasing overall electricity demand across the value chain.

Closing material and water loops is essential, but it cannot compensate for unchecked energy growth. Facility strategies must therefore combine circularity with renewable supply, efficient process systems, adiabatic cooling and humidification, and waste heat recovery wherever practical.

From end-of-life problem to design strategy

Circularity begins long before decommissioning. It starts with adaptable layouts, demountable systems, material data, recoverable utilities and collaboration across the full value chain. Designers, manufacturers, operators, specialist contractors and policy makers all help create viable routes for reuse.

By combining process expertise with circular engineering, we help clients protect operational performance today while preserving resources, flexibility and value for tomorrow.