Program of the Chiptainability Online Seminar 2026

Title: "Chiptainability: Introduction and Trends"
Speaker: Stefan Wunderer (Nokia)
Abstract: In the chip industry, sustainable development is no longer a visionary pursuit or a simple fulfillment of company reporting obligations. It is becoming a non-negotiable requirement for microelectronics companies of all sizes and in all parts of the global chip supply chain. Keeping the impact of the industry activities within safe and just boundaries while driving economic successful innovations is perhaps the greatest challenge of our time.
Chiptainability is defined as the concept of leveraging semiconductor technology and digital solutions, to foster sustainable practices by minimizing negative impacts while maximizing positive contributions to environmental, social and economic factors. Another objective is to strengthen microelectronics sustainability as European competitive advantage, especially in AI times and geopolitical tensions.
Stefan Wunderer will introduce into the topic chiptainability and report about the current status. Also, he will give a short overview about the webinar topics of the upcoming sessions.

Title: "Chiptainability Starts in the Fab: Quantifying Manufacturing Carbon with EcoInsights"
Speaker: Stephen Russel (Techinsights)
Abstract: Semiconductor manufacturing emissions are often the blind spot that breaks sustainability claims in ICT. Two chips with identical specifications can carry very different cradle-to-gate footprints depending on fab location, electricity mix, process-gas management, abatement effectiveness, and yield. For chiptainability and Green ICT, this means that optimizing runtime energy alone can misrank design and supply-chain choices.
This talk introduces TechInsights EcoInsights as an enabling layer for decision-grade carbon intelligence, with a technical deep dive on the Manufacturing Carbon Module. We will unpack what makes manufacturing carbon hard to quantify and compare, including boundary-setting, allocation, traceability across process steps and facilities, and uncertainty and sensitivity analyses. Using a worked scenario narrative with illustrative values, we will walk through the module workflow at a high level: the inputs required to model a manufacturing scenario, the outputs that identify hotspots and scope drivers, and the decisions this supports across design tradeoffs, fab selection, and packaging strategy. We will close with common pitfalls, practical mitigation strategies, and discussion prompts for researchers, students, and industry participants on how to integrate manufacturing carbon into chip and system-level optimization.

Title: "How green is a chip? Factors influencing the carbon footprint of a semiconductor"
Speaker: Richard Willems (Swissbit)
Abstract: Semiconductors power virtually every aspect of modern life — but as demand scales, a critical question arises: how green is a chip, really? This talk takes a holistic view of the carbon footprint of semiconductors, tracing the full journey from raw material extraction through wafer fabrication, advanced packaging, system deployment, and end-of-life disposal. No single stage tells the full story. Key factors explored include the energy intensity of leading-edge process nodes, the carbon cost of increasing integration complexity, the role of fab location and renewable energy access, and how use-phase efficiency interacts with fabrication-phase emissions over a product's lifetime. The talk also addresses a fundamental tension: shrinking nodes improve performance-per-watt, but at the cost of greater process complexity and resource consumption. True sustainability requires rethinking not just how chips are made, but how long they last, how they are used, and how the industry measures its environmental impact — making carbon literacy an essential competency across the entire semiconductor ecosystem.

Title: "Accelerated decarbonization of buildings via retrofit digitization"
Speaker: Dr. Michael Niggemann, Geschäftsführer und Gründer, Enerthing GmbH
Abstract: In this talk, we will discuss a cost-effective approach to transforming existing buildings into smart buildings using energy-autonomous sensor systems. A novel photovoltaic technology enables efficient operation under low and artificial light, powering self-sustaining sensors that collect environmental and occupancy data. Combined with LoRaWAN communication and cloud-based services for analysis and automation, the solution improves energy efficiency while reducing installation and maintenance costs.

Title: Product-Specific Carbon Footprint Calculation in Practice – Lessons learned
Speaker: Sabine Hertel, Senior Manager ESG, SUSS MicroTec SE
Abstract: Product-specific carbon footprinting enables companies to present the climate impact of individual products in a transparent and traceable manner. In our project, we gained practical experience with data collection, scope definition, and implementation. These findings demonstrate how important standardized methods and complete master data are for reliable and comparable carbon footprint calculations.

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