GENESIS: Rethinking microchips production for a sustainable future

The EU GENESIS project is redefining and advancing the sustainability trajectory of the whole semiconductor production industry, tackling PFAS, emissions, critical raw materials, and circularity.

www.innovationnewsnetwork.com, Aug. 11, 2025 – 

The microchips production industry is undergoing a significant transformation. As digital technologies evolve at breakneck speed, the environmental impact of manufacturing the chips that power them should definitely be improved at a high speed. At the heart of this challenge is GENESIS – Green, Environmentally Neutral, Eco-Friendly and Sustainable Integrated Semiconductors, a three-year Horizon Europe project launched in May 2025 to shape the next generation of microelectronics innovation.

GENESIS, short for GENerate in Europe Sustainable Manufacturing for Semiconductor, brings together 58 partners from across Europe, including global industry leaders, research institutions, SMEs, trade associations, and environmental experts. Its mission is clear: to develop and demonstrate practical, scalable solutions that reduce harmful substances, emissions, and material waste in microchips production without compromising performance, innovation, or global competitiveness.

GENESIS is a Chips JU project part of the HORIZON Europe programme co-funded by the EU, Member States, and the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). Led by CEA, through the CEA-Leti institute in France, the project is structured into six work areas, with four focused on a critical dimension of sustainable manufacturing. While GENESIS runs until early 2028, its ambition is to leave a lasting legacy, a blueprint for cleaner, smarter, and more circular microchips production for decades to come.

Technical overview of GENESIS' ambition

The four technology pillars of GENESIS

At the core of GENESIS lies a comprehensive sustainability framework built on four interconnected pillars, each led by a dedicated pillar and supported by expert partners:

Pillar 1 – Monitoring & sensing

This pillar focuses on real-time emissions of air and liquid wastes to ensure tracking, tracing, and monitoring through process feedback systems. Semiconductor fabs emit significant greenhouse gases, especially from process gases like NF₃, CF4, SF6... GENESIS is developing new generation monitoring technologies that can detect, quantify, and help control emissions all along the process chain, enabling the shift toward transparent, low-emission fabs that are aligned with EU climate goals. This pillar is led by CSEM.

Pillar 2 – New materials

With growing global restrictions on PFAS, there is urgent demand for sustainable material replacements. GENESIS is designing and qualifying PFAS alternative chemistries and low-GWP alternatives for advanced semiconductor processes such as lithography, etching, cleaning, and deposition up to packaging level. These next-generation materials are being tested for performance, safety, and compatibility in industrial environments as a pillar led by IMEC.

Pillar 3 – Waste minimisation

By manipulating a wide range of gas and wet chemistries, semiconductor manufacturing generates complex waste streams. This pillar focuses on innovations to improve the global abatement efficiency of air and aqueous waste streams, and also by pushing new solutions in terms of recycling, reuse of gas, slurries and solvents. By implementing closed-loop systems and recovery technologies, GENESIS aims to significantly reduce waste across the fab ecosystem. This pillar is led by the Fraunhofer Institute.

Pillar 4 – Critical raw materials mitigation

Europe's dependence on critical raw materials (CRMs) such as gallium, indium, and rare earth elements poses both economic and geopolitical risks. GENESIS addresses this challenge by developing strategies to reduce CRM dependency through two different axes: CRM material replacement or reduction through process integration alternatives complemented by new circularity strategies enhancing both environmental sustainability and supply chain resilience. This pillar is led by Università degli Studi di Roma 'Tor Vergata.'

Industrial demonstration and validation

Innovation only matters if it consequently changes the real world. That's why GENESIS is committed to demonstrating its technologies through pilot lines hosted by industrial and research partners. These live and on-site demonstrations validate environmental performance, process integration, and scalability, ensuring that innovations are not just technically sound, but also industrially viable GENESIS.

Dissemination vision

Building long-term impact beyond 2028

GENESIS is designed not just as a project, but as a platform for lasting transformation. From the outset, the consortium has worked to ensure that its outcomes will continue to deliver impact beyond the project's lifecycle.

A strategic contribution to Europe's tech leadership

GENESIS is more than just a green initiative; it is a flagship project promoting Europe's long-term leadership in microelectronics. As the European Union advances the EU Chips Act and explores the development of a Chips Act 2.0, projects like GENESIS ensure that sustainability is already embedded in the future of microchips production, not bolted on as an afterthought.

Through its pioneering work on sustainable materials, real-time emissions monitoring, circular manufacturing, and policy alignment, GENESIS is charting a path where advanced chips are not only powerful and precise but also aligned with sustainability concerns: environmentally respectful, circular, eco-designed.

In an era where climate action, digital sovereignty, and sustainable growth must go hand in hand, GENESIS is delivering more than technology.

The project's ambition will also be accompanied by four important complementary dissemination actions

Supporting industrial uptake

Each partner is developing an Individual Exploitation Plan (IEP) detailing how they will use, scale, and integrate GENESIS results, whether through internal innovation pipelines, commercial applications, licensing models or further research collaborations. This bottom-up strategy ensures that GENESIS outcomes are embedded within operational and strategic frameworks across the European ecosystem.

Embedding policy relevance

The project will work in close collaboration with EU regulatory developments, supporting the goals of the European Green Deal, the REACH PFAS restriction, and the Critical Raw Materials Act. Through its regulation and outreach efforts coordinated by SEMI Europe and supported by an embedded external expert committee, GENESIS aims to provide valuable insights to policymakers and foster ongoing dialogue on sustainable semiconductor regulation and standardisation.

Promoting open science and education

GENESIS outputs ranging from technical data to environmental assessments are published via open-access platforms, in accordance with Horizon Europe's transparency principles. Educational content is being tailored for university curricula and training programmes, ensuring that the next generation of engineers, scientists, and decision-makers can build on GENESIS's foundations.

Through active publications, participation in conferences, events, roundtables and meetings, GENESIS will ensure that its findings are amplified across the international microelectronics community. These platforms provide long-term continuity and influence, connecting the project's innovations to global sustainability agendas.

Towards a sustainable semiconductor future

GENESIS is setting the stage for a new model of semiconductor manufacturing, one that recognises that performance and sustainability must evolve together. It doesn't simply ask how to reduce the environmental footprint of microelectronics but instead demonstrates how environmental responsibility can be a driver of innovation.

Through science, collaboration, and real-world validation, GENESIS is proving that Europe can lead the world in microelectronics not only technologically, but sustainably.

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