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National Semiconductor's environmental programs are governed by three sets of interactive requirements: (1) applicable laws and regulations, (2) the ISO 14001:2004 international management systems standard and (3) our environmental standards, which are often stricter than regulatory requirements.
Pollution Control
National has air and water pollution control systems designed and operated to meet local regulatory requirements. Wafer fabrication processes use hydrochloric, hydrofluoric, sulfuric, and other acids. Wastewater from our wafer fabrication plants therefore are treated to maintain pH within the range specified by local regulations. In addition to pH control, National's assembly plants treat metal plating wastewater to remove heavy metals prior to discharge. Our wafer fabrication plants have several types of air pollution control systems, including thermal destruction units for organic emission abatement, water scrubbers to remove acidic gases and ammonia from process exhausts and a variety of process equipment specific abatement devices. Assembly plants have water scrubbers to abate emissions from plating processes.
Management of Chemicals
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| Chemical Distribution & Secondary Containment - Melaka, Malaysia |
Hazardous chemicals, including hazardous waste, are managed within storage and handling facilities designed to prevent spills and leaks and to contain them if they occur.
Employees who operate and maintain pollution control equipment and manage hazardous chemicals are trained on regulatory requirements and operation, maintenance and emergency procedures.
We have a history of proactively eliminating hazardous chemicals from our operations. National eliminated trichloroethylene in the 1970s, when it became a suspected carcinogen. We do not use chlorinated solvents. National phased out ozone depleting substances between 1989 and 1993, before any regulatory ban. In the early 1990s, National eliminated ethylene glycol ethers, when they were implicated as possible reproductive hazards.
Groundwater & Soil Protection
To protect the groundwater and soil at our facilities from contamination by hazardous materials, National secondarily contains equipment, tanks, storage areas and piping. Our employees are trained in the proper handling and use of chemicals. Emergency response teams are trained in chemical spill response. We monitor facilities for groundwater contamination.
We are cleaning up legacy groundwater contamination at five sites in the states of California, Maine, New York, and Washington. Spills and leaks of solvents or petroleum products occurred at these sites in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. Our Santa Clara, California facility is a Federal Superfund Site and is being cleaned up in compliance with a remedial plan approved by the US EPA and the California Regional Water Quality Control Board in 1991. National assumed responsibility for clean-ups at the other four sites through acquisitions. Clean-ups at two of these sites are nearing completion and environmental agency approved closures are anticipated within two years. The remaining two sites will take at least ten more years to meet their clean-up goals. National has set aside financial reserves for funding these clean-ups.
 National is constantly searching for innovative technologies to speed up clean-ups. At Santa Clara, California, we are operating an innovative ozone injection system, which has so far destroyed over 90% of the solvents leaked into the groundwater at one source area. In January 2007, we began a pilot test at Santa Clara using soy bean oil injected into groundwater to create a 25 feet deep by 300 feet wide microbiological treatment zone. As groundwater migrates through the treatment zone, the chlorinated solvent contaminants are destroyed by naturally occurring bacteria as they use the oil for food. We used another in situ microbiological remediation technology to clean up a diesel oil leak in Washington State, which occurred prior to National's purchase of the site. We also continue to use conventional groundwater pump and treat technology and vacuum extraction of volatile solvents from soils.
Resource Use
 National's consumption of water and electricity and generation of hazardous waste normalized for production has generally declined for the past five years, by 58%, 50% and 46%, respectively. Non-normalized, electricity use increased by 15%, water use declined by 3% and hazardous waste generation increased by 24% over five years. National began companywide monitoring of total energy use (electricity, natural gas, fuel oil, other) in 2005. Total energy use decreased by 5% between 2005 and 2006, from 55.5 million to 53.0 million kilowatt-hours (kwh). Normalized for production, total energy use declined by 26% from 31 to 23 kwh per unit of production in 2006. For 2007, National's goal is to improve resource utilization by 5%.
Resource Use Information
Climate Change
National eliminated ozone depleting substances from manufacturing processes in 1993. Perfluorocarbon (PFC) emissions from our wafer fabrication processes have declined 9% from their 2004 high. We are a participating company in the 2000 US EPA/Semiconductor Industry Association PFC Reduction/Climate Partnership. We have more work to do to reduce PFC emissions in support of the semiconductor industry's PFC emission goal of 10% below the 1995 baseline. PFCs are considered strong global warming gases. Our emissions of CO2 declined by 12% from 0.0213 to 0.0187 million metric tons of carbon equivalent (MMTCE) in the past year. Global warming gas emissions are reported as MMTCE.
PFC Emissions
Product Stewardship
Since 2000, National has focused on developing lead-free products. We succeeded in developing a wide range of lead-free products compliant with Directive 2002/95/EC on the restriction of use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS) more than one year before the effective date of the RoHS Directive, July 1, 2006. We are now working on halogen-free products, which are scheduled for introduction in 2007.
At National, we manage the chemical content of our products and packing materials to maintain compliance with the RoHS Directive and other similar regulatory requirements. Suppliers must certify their compliance with National's Supplier Environmental Requirements for Materials and Products and National Semiconductor's List of Banned and Reportable Substances specifications and provide third party laboratory analyses confirming compliance with RoHS substance restrictions. We also randomly sample these materials for analysis by third party laboratories.
Product chemical content data, material declarations, specifications and other related information are available at our home page www.national.com and at www.national.com/quality/green. Customers are provided with product related information in support of their supply-chain management and RoHS compliance system needs. We have standardized on the JIG-101 Joint Industry Guide Material Composition Declaration for Electronic Products and IPC 1752 Materials Declaration Management reporting format material declarations.
Packaging materials used to protect National's products during distribution do not contain banned substances. They do not contain PVC, except for industry standard rails. Corrugated cardboard packaging contains 70% recycled content. Packaging materials are recyclable or reusable except for laminated dry-pack bags. We participate in EU member-country packaging recycling consortia when possible.
National's PowerWise® Brand
National's PowerWise brand leverages the company's heritage and expertise in creating energy-efficient integrated circuits (ICs). PowerWise energy-efficient, high-performance power and analog signal-path products help system design engineers create systems with a smaller energy footprint, less heat generation, and, in portable devices, longer battery life.
Processing Used Wafers
Rather than send used test wafers and process scrap to landfills, National recycles the wafers through its reclaiming program. When these wafers eventually became unusable to National, the company sells them for processing in other industries.
Reclaiming. For nearly 20 years, National's front-end manufacturing facilities have processed --and reclaimed-- used silicon wafers. Wafers are salvaged through both internal reclaim processes and well as through the use of external wafer reclaim service providers. The wafers are then reused in the factory as monitor or test wafers.
Selling to Other Industries. Each trip through the reclaim process removes a layer of silicon from the wafer. After several cycles, the wafer becomes too thin or brittle to survive additional trips through the process. Eventually, wafers become "un-reclaimable" and at this point, National sells the wafer to brokers for reuse in other industries such as photovoltaic.
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