Approach
As a leading global provider of innovative solutions for the computing and graphics markets, AMD strives to provide platforms and products that are designed with consideration for environmental, health and safety (EHS) factors to help customers decrease the EHS impacts of their final products.
Policies and Practices
Design for Environment, Health, and Safety (DfEHS) is a general design principle that integrates environmental, health and safety considerations into design processes to decrease a product's overall EHS impact along its life cycle.
AMD applies DfEHS strategies beginning with research and development programs and continuing into the design of manufacturing technologies. These strategies also are integrated into product design, where we can have the greatest influence on the products' EHS impacts.
Including EHS considerations into the product design can reduce a product's impact during both the active use phase (by decreasing its energy consumption, for example) and at end-of-life (through reducing or eliminating hazardous substances contained in the product).
Designing a product to reduce EHS impacts requires consideration of many issues during the overall design process, including the following key aspects:
As a component manufacturer, AMD's products are not eligible for currently available eco-labels, such as Energy Star. However, AMD products can enable our customers to achieve eco-labels such as Energy Star and to comply with green procurement programs such as EPEAT.
Product Energy Efficiency
AMD is dedicated to developing platform solutions that deliver superior performance-per-watt to reduce energy use, increase power efficiencies, and solve customer problems. We believe this focus on power consumption is not just good for AMD, but for the industry, and for consumers and customers who care about a sustainable future.
The challenge of global climate change and the need to ensure a sustainable future in the face of increasing material and energy constraints are resulting in increased media attention and consumer awareness. As part of this awareness, the energy consumption of computers has received increased attention because of practical considerations, such as the desire for ever-increasing battery life in mobile platforms, as well as governmental initiatives that drive the development of increasingly energy-efficient products.
As the world's focus on the importance of climate protection and energy efficiency grows, AMD continues to make energy efficiency a priority for our products as well as our facilities and operations. Advances in technology result in proven, measurable benefits for businesses and consumers, including decreased carbon emissions, reduced power usage and greater energy security.
More detailed information about AMD's overall climate strategy including our product energy efficiency initiatives is available in AMD's Global Climate Protection Plan.
Addressing Relevant Product and Material Aspects
Material content is the greatest contributor to a component's potential end-of-life EHS impact. As such, it's a constant focus for AMD. Because our products (microprocessors, graphics processors, graphics cards, chipsets, etc.) require ultra high purity input materials, the use of recycled materials as a manufacturing input is rarely feasible. Materials used in manufacturing AMD products are closely monitored and managed to meet regulatory requirements and customer needs.
- Lead - Lead in electronic products has come under increased regulatory scrutiny due to the growing number of electronic products requiring end-of-life treatment and disposal. AMD began formulating a strategy to address lead and other substances of concern in 1999 and offers products that are compliant with the European Union and China RoHS restrictions. AMD is partnering with its suppliers and investing engineering resources to introduce "Lead-Free" products to the market. To qualify as "Lead Free", a part/product must not contain lead above 1000 ppm in homogeneous materials within the part/product, as defined in the EU RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) directive, 2002/95/EC.
- REACH - In addition to lead, AMD is actively addressing other chemical regulatory requirements, such as the European Union's Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and restriction of Chemical substances (REACH) law. These requirements primarily affect material suppliers and wafer manufacturing operations, and we are collaborating with our supplier partners to address REACH requirements.
- Halogens - In 2007, AMD developed a strategy and roadmap to identify halogen-free alternatives to existing materials for products introduced in 2009 and beyond. Over the last two years, AMD has been actively evaluating and testing alternative materials to ensure product performance, quality, and reliability. Beginning in early 2009, new microprocessor products introduced by AMD are Halogen Free, where "Halogen Free" is defined as complying with the restriction of brominated and chlorinated compounds per the IEC 61249-2-21:2003 standard (no other halogens - fluorine, iodine, or astatine - are restricted in this standard). To qualify as "Halogen Free", a part/product must not contain concentrations of bromine or chlorine above the threshold level (900ppm bromine, 900 ppm chlorine, 1500 ppm bromine and chlorine) for each homogeneous material within the part/product.
- PFOS and PFOA - Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) are contained in small amounts in some photoresists and antireflective coatings (ARCs) used to make AMD products. When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began investigating the potential environmental and health concerns related to PFOS in 2000, AMD took the issue of PFOS very seriously. Through our participation in external consortia, we are funding research and development focused on developing alternative materials, as well as enhancing environmental management practices. We are also participating in the World Semiconductor Council's worldwide voluntary commitment to reduce use and emissions of PFOS.
Product Extendibility and End-of-Life
In addition to reducing a product's end-of-life impact through product content considerations, AMD products can also extend the useful life of computers and motherboards.
With the introduction of the AMD Opteron™ and AMD Athlon™ 64 microprocessors in 2003, AMD began offering customers a sustainable computing solution capable of addressing their current and future needs on the same system, thereby extending the useful life of that system. AMD64 technology allows users to run both 32- and 64-bit applications on the same computing platform.
AMD's common core strategy and same socket technology is our strategic initiative dedicated to extending the life of computing platforms and infrastructure. For example, Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors are designed to minimize changes to software and data center infrastructure to protect IT investments, prolong hardware life, and simplify IT management. Our Same Socket Technology enables seamless hardware upgrades from our Dual Core AMD Opteron to the Quad-Core AMD Opteron, as well as our six-core AMD Opteron processor that improves hardware longevity. In June 2009, we launched the industry's first x86 six-core processor for 2-, 4-, and 8-socket servers, the Six-Core AMD Opteron. This new processor is designed to offer a substantial performance leap compared to previous AMD products. With the same socket infrastructure, customers with existing AMD Opteron processors will essentially drop-in the Six-Core AMD Opteron, load a new BIOS and upgrade their dual- or quad-core servers to six cores, thereby dramatically increasing the utilization of their data center while saving time, costs and environmental impacts by increasing performance and overall value to the customer.
Packing
In the semiconductor world, "packing material" refers to the material used to protect AMD's products when they are shipped to customers. Our designers seek out environmentally preferable packing materials and methods to minimize packing materials that meet product protection, cost, material properties (like electrostatic dissipative protection), and compliance with industry standards.
We specify the packing materials used for our products, including recycling of materials and use of recycled content for our packing materials. We have requirements that limit the presence of certain heavy metals, such as lead and cadmium, marking plastic parts with the appropriate SPI (Society of the Plastics Industry) International Resin Codes and using water-based inks and dyes. Additionally, products shipped to OEMs are often shipped in recyclable trays. We use unbleached cardboard boxes for shipping products, and we transitioned from Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) to cardboard for the outer packing of our Processor-In-a-Box product. AMD no longer employs PVC in our packing materials.