[pie42000]

Why are people concerned about energy and material costs? Semiconductors are probably the highest margin manufactured goods on the planet, with materials and energy being the lowest cost input to the process. The only good that can compete is bottled water or movie theater popcorn.

This is 100% politically motivated.

[Robotbeat]

It takes about 3 kWh per square centimeter to make a high-quality silicon wafer. 90 nm node silicon wafer might cost about three dollars per square centimeter. So it isn’t a rounding error for actual wafer production. The unsubsidized electricity cost in Taiwan is on the order of 30¢/kWh for natural gas vs about 7-8¢/kWh in Texas. So the difference isn’t zero.

Purifying and growing high quality wafers is very, very energy intensive. This becomes more important as Moore’s Law slows and more of chip costs become just the wafer costs.