Tracking Environmental Issues

[As of Jan, 2010]

Environmental Quality of Products

Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS) Directive, the End of life Vehicles (ELV) Directive and other legislation adopted by the European Union (EU) restrict the use of environmentally hazardous materials in the various manufacturing types of electronic and electrical equipment. Furthermore, the REACH (a European Community regulation which deals with the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) requires the regulations of chemical substances including carcinogens and other potentially hazardous substances to gene information. The objectives of these regulations and restrictions in use of such chemicals are: 1. to prevent environmental pollution such as soil, groundwater and atmospheric contaminations and 2. to protect the human health against such chemical pollutions due to heavy metals and other substances contained in electronic and electrical equipment (i.e., parts and materials that constitute them). For semiconductor devices that compose electronic and electrical equipment, better control and management of environmental pollutants and conversions to safer alternative substances are considered to be important quality factors.
Toshiba Group develops semiconductor devices with an emphasis on global environmental protection, considering the life cycle impacts they will have on the environment—every phase from manufacturing and usage of products through to recycling and reusing of end-of-life products. Our principle is to design and manufacture products with a view to promoting recycling-oriented society.
At Toshiba, quality management extends beyond the assurance of semiconductor devices’ functions and reliability; the concept of quality encompasses controlling the use of environmentally hazardous substances. Toshiba sets clear quantified targets for the maximum concentrations of such substances in its semiconductor products. As shown in Figure 1, the quality, procurement and environment divisions are concerned with environmental quality of products. These departments make combined efforts to assure environmental quality of products, as shown in the procedural flow in Figure 2.

Environmental Considerations for Design, Development and Process Changes

At the design and development stages, semiconductor devices are based on the environmentally conscious product design. Thus, implementing the product environmentl assessment enhances developing the environmentally conscious products (ECP)^*1. A similar approach is also taken when changing materials and/or manufacturing processes.

*1: ECP•••Environmentally Conscious Products

This is [Figure 1 Environmental Quality of Products].

Figure 1 Environmental Quality of Products

Green Procurement

To ensure compliance with environmental legislation such as the EU / RoHS directive and the REACH restrictions, Toshiba has created its own list of materials, considering the customer trends. Toshiba also has the green procurement guideline to obtain cooperation from each of its suppliers for the control of environmentally hazardous substances. The guideline defines the voluntarily controlled substances and their controlled level, and the requirements for the environmental quality management system, including the banned and reportable substances. The guidelines also oblige suppliers to submit the evidences and so on that satisfy the Toshiba requirements. For green procurement, Toshiba endeavors to select environmentally-friendly parts and materials in a joint effort with its suppliers.

Verification Systems

Using simple analysis equipment, Toshiba regularly conducts acceptance inspections for the purchased parts and materials and manufacturing process contamination inspections to assure compliance with the EU / RoHS requirements for four heavy metals^*2.

*2: Heavy metals banned by the EU / RoHS Directive

Cadmium (Cd)
Lead (Pb)
Mercury (Hg)
Total chromium (Cr)^*3

*3: Toshiba controls with total chromium while the EU/RoHS Derective restricts the use of hexavalent chromium.

Product Environmental Information Databases

Toshiba builds and maintains databases for environmental information such as environment assessment, green procurement, product constituent substances and so on. Toshiba utilizes these databases to check if any voluntarily regulated substances are not used in products and to provide environmental information to customers timely.

This is [Figure 2 Product Environmental Quality Management System].

Figure 2 Product Environmental Quality Management System