This is the age of the eco-engineer, the professional who cares as much about the environment as the consumer. Philip Morris explains.
Finding the right candidates to drive the semiconductor industry forward is not as straightforward as it used to be.
Many of today's employers are now looking beyond the basic requirements of an advanced education and technical background to fill a position. They want people who, in addition to their brilliant, techie-minds, share their commitment to protecting the environment as well.
This is the age of the eco-engineer, the conscientious professional who cares as much about the environmental impacts of the technology he produces as the immediate effects it has on the daily experiences of consumers.
Companies such as STMicroelectronics have come to terms with the fact that mother nature is not a resource that can be indefinitely plundered; but rather one that must be carefully accounted for, and where possible, preserved. This includes the booming chip industry, which produces the most ubiquitous technology on earth.
From mobile phones to television sets and computers, microchips often the size of a grain of rice are responsible for making our daily necessities work. Unfortunately, while shrinking in size, the chip's environmental debt is growing in scale.
STMicroelectronics has taken the eco-issue further than other companies and is looking beyond the financial impacts of environmental abuse. On the top of ST's agenda is a focus on working with the environment to promote its sustainability and to produce technology that is compatible with the world around it. The employees that form the company must share this ethos to make ST the cleanest semiconductor leader in the world. Cue the need for the eco-conscious engineer.
In 1995, ST published its first Environmental Decalogue, a set of 10 targets created to help the Company reduce its impact on the environment. ST was one of the first companies to set measurable, time-defined goals for environmental performance and to commit to them in public - publishing the Decalogue as a booklet and distributing it widely among employees, suppliers, customers, and partners.
With a long history as an environment leader, ST knows that change is possible to improve the environmental impacts of its manufacturing processes. For example, several years ago the EU placed a 2006 deadline on the semiconductor industry to stop using lead during microelectronics assembly. Ambitious to prohibit the material ahead of the EU's target date, ST took up the challenge earlier. In the late 1990s, ST started studying alternatives to lead usage and, in 2000, launched an internal corporate program called Ecopack which examined three different solutions to replace tin-lead alloys in external package interconnections..
For the past two years, ST has been able to issue Conformity Certificates which assures that the company's entire product portfolio is lead-free at all of its back-end assembly plants around the world. Today, more than 95 per cent of ST's production is RoHS-compliant and ecologically efficient; the exceptions are to meet customer requirements.
As well as this success, ST is driving the race to become a CO2 neutral company. While working to achieve this difficult but important goal, ST is currently replacing some of its traditional energy supplies with renewable ones, like wind farms and solar cells. The company also compensates for its remaining emissions through reforestation programmes and purchases energy from green energy suppliers.
Energy conservation is an issue that transcends the production process. Companies have a social and ethical obligation to produce innovations that are more energy efficient as well.
By producing more energy-efficient chips in TV sets and audio sets, for example, companies can help significantly reduce the world's energy debt. Saving just five watts per TV may not seem a lot, but when one considers that each TV is active for around five hours a day and that there are 500 million TVs out there, the difference it makes to energy reserves is extraordinary.
ST's long-standing commitment to continuous improvement, and to the protection of the environment and human health, places the company in a strong position to anticipate further legislation and to prepare for the extension of banned or suspected hazardous materials. The company now calls on future engineers to take part in this challenge.
Whether we like it or not the war against high-tech waste is being waged and it's a battle that needs to be won to ensure the well being of the planet. The environment must be at the top of the agenda for anyone in the semiconductor business as it is growing rapidly and the ecological impacts of an unclean processing plant are irreversible.
Indeed, the electronics sector is the world's largest and most rapidly growing industry, with experts predicting that over 140 new semiconductor manufacturing plants will be built worldwide in the next 10 years. It's not realistic to believe that this growth can ever be quelled, but what can be controlled from day one - with the right-minded engineers - is the impact it has on the environment. The ecological future is truly in our own hands.
Philip Morris is MD, STMicroelectronics (R&D). For more information, visit www.st.com
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