Semiconductor Foundry Campus

Converting advanced manufacturing knowledge into creative design and rapid delivery for a new semiconductor materials facility.

Location

United States

Project value

$2.2 billion

Project status

Complete

Semiconducting materials like silicon carbide have the potential to contribute to the evolution of renewable energy, and enable better-performing electric vehicles, power conversion systems, communication infrastructure and more.

Often manufactured as small, incredibly powerful wafers, our client needed an equally advanced facility to allow its complex fabrication activities to come together on a dedicated campus — and they needed the site up and running quickly, without any existing infrastructure in place.

Understanding that a unified team and tight coordination would be key to success, our firm presented a team of diverse professionals to design and deliver the complex project, with in-house architecture and process architecture, civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection engineering, building technology services and more all coming together to accelerate the construction of the campus.

An exercise in utility

The project consisted of three main areas: a manufacturing facility, administration building and central utility building (CUB). Several satellite buildings included a main guardhouse, water reclamation and acid waste neutralization buildings and a site fire pump house.

In addition to fast-track construction, shaping the future of semiconductors is not without infrastructure challenges. All utilities, including water, power, sewer and roadways, needed to be brought to the site. Water accessibility, a key concern in semiconductor manufacturing, was mitigated by our engineers, who designed a system that reduces water demand through extensive water reclamation and reconditioning as well as careful configuration of the cooling towers.

In the collaboration zone

Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is a construction delivery method where key design, fabrication and construction partners are joined together under a single agreement. This method creates cohesion early on and supports ongoing communication and collaboration throughout the project’s phases.

Coordination at this level requires creativity. Here, we included installation of our Digital Collaboration Zone onsite, a 100" touchscreen used in tandem with Revizto, which created a mini-IMAX experience that showed the project on an immersive scale. This technology fostered open discussions within the design and delivery teams with the goal of improving technical reviews and minimizing change orders with real-time problem solving.

IPD was a critical component for keeping our large team moving toward the same goals on a compressed 36-month schedule, and the campus stands as an example of coordination best practices for successful outcomes.

Many challenges surfaced during this project, from its remote location to the accelerated timeline. It took a single-minded team working together to turn the client’s concept into the reality of specialized advanced manufacturing capacity while staying on schedule. This project is a shining example of how WSP’s Visioneers transform our client’s wishes into the valuable assets of tomorrow.

Nathan Boepple Senior Vice President, Property & Buildings

Nathan Boepple Senior Vice President, Property & Buildings

Swift structural engineering

Several custom structural solutions were required to keep this large-scale project on track. For example, the erection system for the insulated metal panel building façade facilitated quicker installation work for other building systems, while proprietary concrete products for the floor slabs saved thousands of labor hours that realized both schedule and cost benefits.

Most successfully, the IPD contract delivery method meant that all trade partners worked alongside engineers and fabricators from the beginning of the project, leading to faster, more economical solutions, especially apparent in the warehouse roof framing, lateral system layout and extended shear tabs that allowed for panelized construction.

The coordination between installers, fabricators and designers allowed the building envelope components to be constructed in two weeks once steel columns were up, rather than months, with the entire facility following in less than a year.

Supercharged mechanical design

The semiconductor manufacturing facility included our team’s largest central utility plant to date.

Cooling took center stage within the utility plant, with a chilled water system, process cooling solutions, electric centrifugal chillers and various cooling towers.

Additionally, the local water utility did not have enough capacity to serve the site, which presented a challenge for our mechanical engineers. In response, our team explored conservation scenarios that resulted in a reduction of water consumption by one million gallons per day.

The construction of this new silicon carbide wafer manufacturing campus will help meet demand for critical semiconducting materials to help accelerate progress toward an energy secure future and more.