Driven by technology advances and demand for enhanced productivity, migration of wafer fabrication for DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) toward increased wafer size has become the fast-growing trend in semiconductor industry. Taiwan accounts for about 18% of the total DRAM wafer production in the world. The energy use required for operating wafer fabrication plants (fabs) is intensive and has become one of the major concerns to production power reliability in the island. This paper characterizes the energy use in four 300 mm DRAM wafer fabs in Taiwan through performing surveys and on-site measurements. Specifically, the objectives of this study are to characterize the electric energy consumption and production of 300 mm DRAM fabs by using various performance metrics, including PEI ((production efficiency index), annual electric power consumption normalized by annual produced wafer area) and EUI ((electrical utilization index), annual electric power consumption normalized by UOP (units of production), which is defined as the product of annual produced wafer area and the average number of mask layers of a wafer). The results show that the PEI and EUI values are 0.743 kWh/cm(2) and 0.0272 kWh/UOP, respectively. Using EUI in assessing energy efficiency of the fab production provides more consistent comparisons than using PEI alone. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.