Work

ForgetMeNot: Understanding and Modeling the Impact of Forever Chemicals Toward Sustainable Large-Scale Computing

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Fluorinated compounds, commonly known as forever chemicals, play a critical role in semiconductor fabrication steps such as lithography, etching, and chamber cleaning. They exhibit global warming potentials thousands of times higher than carbon dioxide and persist in the atmosphere for millennia. Yet, sustainability efforts in computer systems have primarily focused on carbon emissions alone. We introduce ForgetMeNot, a modeling tool that quantifies fluorinated compound emissions across different steps of the semiconductor manufacturing pipeline. We validate its accuracy using real-world fab data and demonstrate its utility for emission-aware hardware design. ForgetMeNot reveals how different chip characteristics affect fluorinated compound emissions, and helps datacenter operators select low-emission hardware configurations. By integrating fluorinated compound emissions into hardware manufacturing decisions, ForgetMeNot presents a more complete sustainability framework for computing systems.

Source: ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review

DOI: 10.1145/3744970.3727288

Authors: Rohan Basu Roy, Raghavendra Kanakagiri, Yankai Jiang, Devesh Tiwari

Institutions: University of Utah, Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati, Northeastern University

Language: English

Topic: Green IT and Sustainability

Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Responsible consumption and production, Climate action

Open Access status: bronze

Funder: Universitas Brawijaya