The semiconductor industry is witnessing a strategic shift in its competitive landscape, moving from simply securing water supplies to maximizing water reuse. Taiwan’s TSMC has achieved a water recycling rate exceeding 88%, far outpacing South Korean rivals Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, whose rates remain in the 40% range. Analysts note that efficiently reusing water is emerging as a critical competitive advantage beyond merely securing large volumes of the resource.<\/p>\n
Semiconductors are a quintessentially water-intensive industry. Between the hundreds of process steps required to etch circuits onto wafers, chips must be rinsed with “ultrapure water” \u2014 water stripped of ions, organic matter, and microscopic particles to an extreme degree. In advanced processes measured in nanometers (billionths of a meter), a single chemical residue or dust particle can cause defects and send yields plummeting. According to industry data, manufacturing a single 8-inch wafer consumes roughly 7 metric tons of water across the entire fabrication process, with larger wafers requiring even more.<\/p>\n
According to UK-based market research firm IDTechEx, global semiconductor production consumed over 900 million metric tons of water in 2024, a figure projected to more than double to 2 billion metric tons by 2035. Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions (DS) division reported an annual water intake of 179.01 million metric tons last year, while SK Hynix used 83.5 million metric tons at its South Korean facilities alone. The combined water usage of the two companies reached 262.51 million metric tons, a roughly 33% increase from 2018 and an all-time high.<\/p>\n
The problem lies in the sluggish pace of recycling improvements relative to the surge in water consumption. SK Hynix’s water reuse rate last year was 47%, a marginal improvement from 44% in 2023. Samsung Electronics does not separately disclose its recycling rate, but industry estimates place it at around 40%.<\/p>\n
In stark contrast, TSMC is demonstrating overwhelming water recycling capabilities. According to the company’s sustainability report, its water recycling rate soared to 90.3% in 2023 before settling at 88.1% in 2024. This is made possible by a circular system that reprocesses wastewater through advanced purification systems back into ultrapure water. This technological prowess is the foundation enabling TSMC to construct a massive semiconductor fab in the desert region north of Phoenix, Arizona \u2014 an area with acute water scarcity. The facility uses approximately 18,000 metric tons of water per day but meets 65% of its needs with recycled water, with plans to boost the recycling rate above 90% upon the completion of a wastewater reclamation facility scheduled for 2028.<\/p>\n
The gap in water recycling rates is intertwined with the dynamics of the semiconductor foundry market. TSMC commands a 72.3% share of the global foundry market, solidifying its dominant position. However, due to capacity constraints, its artificial intelligence (AI) chip production lines are effectively fully booked through 2028. This has led the company to raise wafer supply prices for 3-nanometer and 5-nanometer processes by 5% to 10% for major clients such as Apple and AMD.<\/p>\n
This bottleneck could present an opportunity for Samsung Electronics’ foundry division. Reports have emerged that Google is considering a split-production strategy to avoid bottlenecks, manufacturing its main processor at TSMC while outsourcing memory I\/O dies to Samsung Electronics. Industry forecasts also suggest Meta may produce its next-generation AI accelerator, the MTIA 3rd generation, at Samsung’s foundry. The attendance of Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong at the Sun Valley Conference in Idaho on July 7 (local time), accompanied by Han Jin-man, the president overseeing the foundry business, is widely interpreted as a move to secure global Big Tech clients.<\/p>\n
Water recycling technology is a matter directly tied to cost. “The process of purifying used water and turning it back into ultrapure water is more expensive than treating standard industrial water,” an industry insider explained. “There is also a risk that microscopic impurities introduced during the recycling process could degrade yields in advanced manufacturing nodes, so we must proceed with extreme caution.”<\/p>\n
The strategic importance of water was starkly illustrated in 2021 when Taiwan suffered its worst drought in 56 years. The Taiwanese government suspended agricultural water supply to roughly 74,000 hectares of irrigated farmland \u2014 about a quarter of the total \u2014 and prioritized water allocation to semiconductor fabs, demonstrating that water security is directly linked to national competitiveness. In South Korea, as discussions continue over securing massive water resources for the semiconductor cluster in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, improving water recycling rates has emerged as a critical priority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The semiconductor industry is witnessing a strategic shift in its competitive landscape, moving from simply securing water supplies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[44637,3245,127,276,223,23616,275,3246,14769,44636],"class_list":["post-83375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-samsung","tag-arizona-fab","tag-foundry","tag-samsung","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-samsung-group","tag-semiconductor-cluster","tag-sk-hynix","tag-tsmc","tag-ultrapure-water","tag-water-recycling-rate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}