Sustainability Report
Microchip performs its business for the economic well being of our shareholders, customers, employees, and the communities and countries in which we conduct business. We do this while operating in a responsible manner, with attention to both the positive and negative impact our operations and products have on the environment. Microchip actively protects the environment through compliance with all applicable environmental laws and regulations. In addition, we continue to improve the ways in which we conduct our operations to save resources, minimize waste and reduce our environmental impact. And we are pleased to offer products that offer our customers the freedom to innovate for an energy conscious world. We highlight some of our sustainability efforts in our annual Sustainability Report
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Microchip is committed to protecting the environment. We provide transparency into our world-wide greenhouse gas emissions and product development strategy with regard to climate change through our annual response to the Carbon Disclosure Project (www.cdproject.net) and will report 2011 greenhouse gas emissions for our U.S. semiconductor fabrication facilities to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2012, and annually thereafter.
Sustainable Product Solutions
Microchip has a portfolio of microcontroller and analog semiconductors that can help third parties reduce energy use and avoid emissions. We have microcontroller and analog semiconductors that enable low power consumption, wired and wireless communications protocols and opportunities to continuously increase the intelligence and capability of smart technologies for the efficient and reduced use of energy applicable in a broad spectrum, from home appliances to the energy grid. Microchip also offers embedded-controller solutions that can be widely used to enable renewable energy.
Quantifying emissions avoidance and timescales is challenging, as Microchip does not produce end-use consumer products. As an example, we make microcontrollers that help appliances do the things they need to do and draw minimal power while active and in sleep. Microchip also offers leading-edge embedded controller solutions to enable the high energy efficiency of motors, power supplies and lighting, which can significantly lower energy usage. These embedded-controller solutions are also widely used in renewable energy to implement solar and wind inverters.
Successive generations of Microchip PIC® microcontrollers with the eXtreme Low Power (XLP) technology have enabled appliance manufacturers to reduce standby losses for their applications by as much as 75%. The typical power loss per appliance during standby use, when multiplied by the billions of appliances in houses and in commercial buildings, represents a significant percentage of total world electricity use. It is estimated that standby electricity losses contribute 5% to 8% of CO2 emissions originating from United States residential electricity usage. The latest generation of PIC® microcontrollers with the XLP technology offers appliance manufacturers microcontrollers with combined extreme low power consumption for sleep current, active current, time to execute tasks and power consumed in various modes. The XLP technology enables the next round of reductions to standby power losses, driven by directives such as the European Union's EcoDesign regulation adopted in December 2008.
Microchip provides solutions for wireless communications for the Smart Grid. The proposed Smart Grid initiatives are placing the meter as the hub of communication from the home to the utility provider. Enabling communication within the grid is key to presenting, monitoring and controlling usage of our resources. Microchip provides development platforms to enable wireless communication of ZigBee® networks, including the Smart Energy Profile, along with Wi-Fi®connectivity and Sub-GHz AMI solutions.
