As the world's largest foundry, TSMC runs dozens of fabs and consumes an enormous amount of electricity — around 9% of Taiwan's total power consumption. Last month, in an effort to reduce costs and meet sustainability goals, the company launched its EUV Dynamic Energy Saving Program, which is designed to cut the power consumption of its EUV lithography tools.
Starting in Sept. 2025, TSMC has been gradually rolling out its EUV Dynamic Energy Saving Program at its Fabs 15B, 18A, and 18B — and so far the program has demonstrated promising results. The company plans to complete full deployment across its entire fleet of EUV tools worldwide by the end of the year, and will also make it a baseline requirement for all new fab installations going forward (e.g., Fab 21 phase 2 and onwards in Arizona will also use the program). TSMC projects that the program will yield a total of 190 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) in electricity savings, and cut carbon emissions by 101 kilotons by 2030.
TSMC is also exploring the possibility of applying similar dynamic energy control mechanisms to other lithography equipment, including DUV scanners, as well as additional modules outside the lithography sector.
While TSMC did not reveal what, exactly, its EUV Dynamic Energy Saving Program involves, that it is applicable to DUV systems and other machinery means that it does not exploit EUV-specific peculiarities. For example, the program could implement adaptive power scaling based on real-time operational status. If wafers are not queued for immediate processing, the EUV tool could intelligently pause or shift to a low-power state rather than continuously consume full power. Such an approach would require real-time data exchange across the cleanroom as well as optimizations on process/production flow levels (though, we are speculating).
TSMC has been increasing the power efficiency of its EUV fab tools — which are notorious for their power consumption — for years, now. In mid-2024, the company announced that it had succeeded in reducing power consumption of its EUV litho systems by 24%, though without disclosing what exactly had been done.
TSMC's enhanced fab-level automation, with advanced control systems that dynamically adjust tool energy usage based on real-time production demand, reduced peak power draw of EUV tools by 44% — enabling more efficient operation without compromising output, quality, or yields.
While 190 million kWh in electricity savings by 2030 sounds significant, as it can save the company some $22.44 million (at an NT$3.78 per kWh rate), it is hardly a significant cut to TSMC's overall power consumption. In 2024, the foundry consumed 25.55 billion kWh — of which 21.94 billion came from non-renewable sources and 3.61 billion from renewables, according to SemiVision. Only 46.1% of power consumed by TSMC came from its actual fab tools, while around 53.9% were consumed by various supporting systems.
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