Environmental Management of SANYO Semiconductor Manufacturing Philippines Corporation (An ON Semiconductor Company)

I.

Introduction The SANYO Semiconductor Manufacturing Philippines Corporation (An ON Semiconductor Company) was established on April 11, 1995 and started its operation in June 1996. It is a reputable ISO 9001:2008, ISO/TS 16949:2009 and ISO 14001:2004 certified multinational company located in Luisita Industrial Park, SEPZ, San Miguel,Tarlac City, Philippines. The company has a building area of 12, 678 sq.m with a total site area of 80,354 sq.m. SSMP produces Large Scale Integrated circuits (LSIs) which are exported overseas. These products are MOS (metal-oxidesemiconductors) and Bipolar types, which serves as vital component of audio-video products, communications and computer peripherals. The companys social responsibility is to provide customers products that are environmentally sound. ON Semiconductor supports the basic aim of REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals) in improving the protection of human health and the environment through better and earlier identification of the intrinsic properties of chemical substances. Usually semiconductors are composed of silicon and some of the procedures of manufacturing these semiconductors involved in the process of developing a roll of photographic film. Semiconductors appear to the naked eye as being small and flat, but they are actually three-dimensional sandwiches that are ten to twenty layers thick. It will take two full months to produce a single one of these silicon sandwiches. Below are some of the basic and essential steps in manufacturing process of silicon chips: 1. Silicon crystals are melted in a vat and purified to 99.9999% purity. The melted silicon is drawn into long, heavy, cylindrical ingots, which are cut into thin slices called wafers, about the thickness of a business card. 2. One side of each wafer must be polished absolutely smooth. 3. Layers of material must be stacked on top of the polished silicon wafer base. Insulating layers are laid down in alteration with conducting layers in a

process called deposition, wherein achieved by spraying chemicals directly onto the surface of the wafer. 4. After deposition, the wafer is coated with another layer of chemicals called photoresist that is sensitive to light. 5. A machine called a stepper is used to transmit the light through the reticle onto the photoresist layer, which reacts to light and begins to harden. All parts of the wafer exposed to this light is harden into a tough crust while other parts in shadow remain soft thus producing a chip. 6. Hundreds of copies of the chip are etched onto the wafer until the entire surface has been exposed. After esposing, the entire wafer is submerged into an etching bath, which washes away the parts of the photoresist that remain unexposed. The hardened areas of the photoresist remain and protect the layers of material underneath them. This process of depositing chemicals, coating with photoresist and exposure to light and etching and washing away is repeated more than a dozen times thus resulting to an elaborate, threedimensional construction of interlocking silicon wires. 7. This product is then coated with another insulating layer and is plated with a thin layer of metal, usually either aluminium copper. Yet another photoresist is laid down on top of this metal plating, and after the wafer is exposed in a stepper, the process repeats with another layer of metal. After this step has been repeated several more times, a final wash is performed, and a finished semiconductor product rolls off the assembly line (Jason Holden and Christopher Kelty, 2005).

II.

Issues and Problems The semiconductor industry is one of the fastest growing manufacturing sectors in the world. The word semiconductor technically refers to any member of a class of solid, crystalline materials that is characterized by an electrical conductivity better than that of insulators but less than that of good conductors. Semiconductors are particularly useful as a base material in the manufacturing of computer chips, and the term semiconductor has actually come to be synonymous

with computer chips, themselves. However, semiconductors are not only used in computers. Computers only make up 44% of entire industry consumption. Semiconductors are also used for military, automotive, industrial,

communications, and other consumer purposes (Jason Holden and Christopher Kelty, 2005). Many of the chemicals being used in the production are not expensive but maintaining it clean may cost the manufacturer a lot of money. The production of semiconductors is in need of great amount of water and electricity and consumption of water and electricity has impact to the environment. Drinking water could be affected by these processes. Recycling and reusing of water is prevalent to companies in greening their supply chain but a lot of chemicals can be involved in the processes of recycling and reusing. Not only during production that this environmental problem could arises but also after it is being sold. Consumers disposal of used products may also arise to another environmental problem especially if consumers does not follow proper disposal. The said above arises to give answers to the following questions: How does the company reduce its carbon footprint? How does the company manage its packaging to support a greener world? How does the company green its reverse logistics? III. Analysis ON Semiconductor is committed to supporting a Greener World by reducing their carbon footprint, actively resources and effectively partnering with like-minded customers and industry organization. This is the international environmental sustainability of the company and serves as the commitment and policy, one of the phases in establishing and maintains EMS. Annually, a member from the company (SSMP) will attend a corporate symposium to review the conservation successes of the previous year and identify areas where new and existing in-house sustainability programs can be expanded or improved, this symposium will also be attended by members of the companys global manufacturing, quality, environmental health and safety, supply chain and facilities teams. Being involve in such symposium will basically form the

companys PDCA (Plan Do Check Act), it evaluate its previous performance will implement programs and rules so that it will comply with its commitment and policy if the previous performance has failed to comply with its policy. The global companys symposium will not only determine the problem of one factory but as well as the problem of other factories around the globe. This will determine problems and also be a help of preventing such problem to occur to other factories. In planning, problems are determined and how do these problems happen, could it be from improper management or just a lack of programs regarding the environment, the sources of problems will also be determined and upon determining the problem ideas will come up for solving these problems. One problem that may encounter by a semiconductor company is its consumer improper disposal of electronic waste which will be given further discussions in this study. Next is the DO, it is designed to solve problems on a small or experimental scale first, it is the testing stage, whether the changes will work or not. Third is to check whether the experiment in DO are achieving the desired result or not, but of course continuous checking is necessary for there might arise another problem after solving a problem. And lastly is to Act, implement changes on a larger scale if the experiment is successful. The company is dedicated to the continued expansion and improvement of its worldwide environmental sustainability initiatives with the aim of annually reducing the energy consumption by five percent, the water consumption by five percent and the overall carbon footprint by five percent, carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly and indirectly support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide. The use of water in fabrication and other processes, used of electricity and even the transportation or shipping of manufactured products will give a sum of huge amount of carbon footprint, whereas this carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas causing global warming, another impact to the environment. The companys factory is engaged in multiple sustainability projects aimed at conserving water, electricity and fuel. Their manufacturing operations have well-established recycling and waste minimization programs in place.

Ongoing sustainability programs include reusing rinse water in fabs, reducing water flow during equipment idle periods, reducing electricity use, reducing chemical use via process optimization, recovering heat from boilers, balancing air streams and other programs. These are the methods that the company used to reduce their carbon footprint emissions which give impact to the environment. During 2008, 230,000 tons of scrap materials from the companys worldwide manufacturing facilities were processed, sorted, and sold for reuse, which is good news for they were able to reuse scrap materials, last resort should be disposal. The companys logistics team, the sole responsible for shipment and delivery for the manufactured products, has reduced the in-transit mileage logged by out parts by more than 50 million miles per year, thus reducing the comp anys overall carbon footprint. The companys right-size packaging program has significantly reduced the amount of corrugated carton materials and polyethylenebase materials being used. One of the main problems of polyethylene is that without special treatment it is not biodegradable and thus accumulates. All products are available in lead-free packaging. DFN/QFN ( Dual or Quad FlatPack No-Lead), a platform represents the latest in surface mount packaging technology, package families are available in Halogen-free mold compounds and still qualifying and converting other packages. Take-back and Recycle Policy Program provides customers with an environmentally responsible solution for the return, recycling and disposal of its products, including its evaluation printed circuit boards. This program is designed to ensure compliance with the current and forthcoming regulations involving producer responsibility for recycling and proper disposal of electronic waste products.

REFERENCE
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