- As AI accelerates demand for advanced chips, sustainability is becoming essential for long-term growth
- Lam is helping customers advance chip performance with a smaller environmental footprint
The race to build the next generation of semiconductors has never been more intense. Artificial intelligence is increasing global demand for advanced chips at an extraordinary rate, and chipmakers around the world are scaling their fabs to meet it. At the same time, our industry is working to achieve its net zero emissions goals.
This presents a complicated challenge: how to build higher-performance chips while using fewer resources.
At Lam, our solutions aim to help our customers do just that—increasing compute while making chips more sustainably.
Delivering on Our Goals
Our 2025 Global Impact Report reflects the progress we are making on our long-standing environmental and social goals and the measurable benefits for our customers, employees, and communities.
That momentum is visible in our results. In 2019 we set ambitious multi-year goals spanning emissions, energy, water, and supplier engagement. I’m proud to say we met or exceeded all but two of our goals in 2025.
Driving Toward Net Zero in Semiconductor Manufacturing
As we work to achieve our goal of net zero emissions by 2050, we have a series of short- and long-term goals to guide our efforts, even as we grow our global operations. Our latest report outlines the progress since our 2019 baseline. Highlights include:
- Surpassed our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions target with a 36% reduction in emissions
- Saved more than 13.7 million kilowatt-hours of energy
- Exceeded our supplier engagement goal, with 53.8% of suppliers setting science-based targets
Looking ahead, we will continue to drive emissions reductions in our operations and our value chain, also known as Scope 3, with goals to reduce emissions from both the use of our products and direct suppliers. We are already making progress toward a 63.8% reduction in Scope 3 emissions per USD value added, or gross profit, from the use of our products by 2034. Building on that work, we have set a new goal to reduce direct supplier emissions by 64% per USD value added, or gross profit, by 2034.
Our tools run in fabs around the world. That means when we innovate, we can help shape the environmental footprint of the semiconductor value chain. Here are three ways our technology helps customers deliver better performance, more sustainably.
More Wafers With a Smaller Environmental Footprint
Our technology can reduce energy use and emissions per wafer, while improving throughput and process performance. For instance, Akara® offers better etching efficiency with a reduced energy footprint by incorporating solutions like DirectDrive®. DirectDrive is the industry’s first solid-state RF generator, improving precision while reducing energy use by more than 10%, as the system only generates enough power to be absorbed by the plasma load.
To achieve net zero by 2050, we are also investing to solve one of the industry’s most difficult sustainability challenges, reducing emissions from process gases. The bar is high as any replacement chemistry must deliver the same on-wafer performance with a lower global warming potential (GWP).
At our Velocity Lab, we are optimizing the use of high-GWP gases and seeking to identify viable lower-GWP alternatives. Using the latest technologies, screening replacement chemistries and processes on wafer “coupons” before moving to full-wafer testing helps teams evaluate more options and can reduce time to fab.
Virtualization for More Efficient, Lower-Carbon Insights
Innovation requires experimentation, but physical experimentation can consume significant time, materials, and energy. Lam’s Semiverse® Solutions portfolio shifts key parts of research and development into the virtual world, reducing associated emissions by up to 80%. Tools like SEMulator3D® create virtual equivalents of the complex chip structures built in a fab and help engineers model process outcomes faster. Fabtex™ Yield Optimizer applies AI and machine learning to a customer’s inline fab data to recommend new metrology targets that can improve yield faster.
Sustainability virtual twins can further optimize a tool’s total carbon footprint in the fab by modeling how subsystems interact and highlighting inefficiencies, allowing teams to refine component specifications and controls for improved performance and efficiency.
Extending Tool Lifetime Through Circular Innovation
Our work with customers doesn’t end when our tools are installed in their fabs. With systems expected to run for decades, extending tool lifetime through product circularity is an important business strategy. We make many of our technical advancements available as upgrades, enabling the continued use of platform and chamber components rather than requiring a full replacement. Since 2019, onsite upgrades have cumulatively avoided 584 tons of CO2e, more than 3,600 tons of aluminum production, and more than 900 tons of steel production.
Furthermore, Equipment Intelligence® supports fab teams with real-time monitoring, forecasting, and optimization—helping reduce unplanned downtime, avoid unnecessary parts replacement, shorten troubleshooting cycles, and increase overall equipment effectiveness.
Turning Sustainability Into Customer Value
At Lam, we are moving with velocity and intention to innovate across the product lifecycle and help customers maximize chip performance while minimizing their impact on the environment. Sustainability creates measurable business value: lower operating costs, higher productivity, and greater resilience in a resource-constrained world.
On the path to net zero, performance and sustainability will become increasingly inseparable. Our roadmap is engineered to help our customers build lower-carbon fabs of the future.
Learn how sustainability is becoming a performance advantage in semiconductor manufacturing
