Comparative cradle-to-gate LCA of RF power amplifiers for user equipment

The telecommunications sector is experiencing rapid growth, driven by the exponential rise in data transmission volumes. This demand has led to significant innovation in the front-end-module, and particularly in the power amplifiers (PAs), requiring III-V group-based compound semiconductor materials, instead of traditional silicon-based technologies. ICT hardware manufacturing raises multiple sustainability concerns, including the intensive use of natural resources, significant waste generation, and the high consumption of electrical energy during production. These issues are further exacerbated by the rapid growth of the ICT market and the increasing shift toward non-silicon-based technologies. We address these issues in this paper through a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) of the environmental impacts associated with the fabrication of PAs based on different semiconductor technologies suited for user equipment applications (45RFSOI, GaN-on-Si HEMT, GaAs HBT). We show a substantially higher impact per cm²in terms of climate change (∼1.6x higher) and resource depletion (∼470x higher) for the market-dominant GaAs PA compared to RFSOI and GaN-on-Si technologies. It is due to the GaAs wafer manufacturing and the usage of gold. In addition to LCA considerations, the integration of compound semiconductor materials introduces broader sustainability concerns, particularly with respect to resource scarcity, economic viability, and potential social implications. We explore these dimensions and highlight concerns related to gold usage in GaAs PA as well as different critical materials used in these radio frequency technologies.