Zero Emissions Day: How onsemi Contributes to a Decarbonized Future through its Products and Actions

by Siobhan Lyons - 09-21-2022

Climate change has been reshaping the world we live in, affecting every continent on earth, putting the onus on all of us to deal with the challenges it brings such as the such as the earth's rising temperature, ecosystem collapse and severe weather. Europe experienced unprecedented heatwaves this summer leading to wildfires, droughts and evacuations, while many states in the U.S. are dealing with extreme droughts, requiring government-imposed water restrictions. Climate scientists have discovered the artic is heating four times faster than the rest of the world and that parts of Asia will experience irreversible water storage declines by 2060. While the impacts of climate change can feel overwhelming and leave us with a sense of hopelessness, the truth is, we have the autonomy and power to change our trajectory. The everyday choices and actions of individuals and businesses can reduce emissions and develop more sustainable solutions moving forward.

The Climate Leadership Coalition (CLC), the largest nonprofit climate business network in Europe, has declared September 21 Zero Emissions Day. According to CLC, Zero Emissions Day was "designed to give the world a break from fossil fuels and to raise awareness about the harm caused by carbon emissions." Zero Emissions Day started in Nova Scotia, Canada in 2008 and has continued to encourage people to make climate-friendly choices in their personal life. onsemi echoes the sentiment of Zero Emissions Day and shares here how our company, through our actions and products, is contributing to the decarbonization effort.

onsemi is committed to operating its business in a socially thoughtful and environmentally responsible manner, knowing that its actions today influence the world of tomorrow. onsemi takes fundamental responsibility for its impact on the environment, customers, employees and society. To that end, the company has set a goal to be net zero by 2040, and individuals across the company are making choices that reduce emissions and contribute to a more sustainable future. onsemi will commit to the Science-Based Target Initiative by the end of 2022 and will set short term goals to ensure the company is hitting key milestones on its road to net zero.

While onsemi is taking steps to reduce emissions from its operations and the operations of its value chain, the company's intelligent power and sensing technologies play a significant role in reducing the emissions of its customers. The company's products solve the most challenging customer problems across key applications that extend from electric vehicles (EV), EV charging, energy infrastructure, factory automation, advanced safety to 5G infrastructure. Some examples of products that help empower decarbonization efforts include:

• RSL15 : Provides the industry's lowest power consumption Bluetooth® Low Energy solution on the market. The RSL15 is used in various applications such as electronic access badges, people and asset tracking, wearable bracelets and fitness trackers, blood analyzers and more. The RSL15 now leads its class by attaining a performance score of 60.5 within the ULPMark®-CoreMark benchmark, for which the average score is 35. This active-power embedded benchmark combines a measure of energy efficiency and performance simultaneously, allowing designers to understand both when choosing a solution. By the end of 2022, onsemi estimates that the use of the RSL15 over our competitors' comparable devices will save an average 83,000 kWh of energy and 50 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2e).

• VE-Trac^TM: Traction inverters are the heart of electric vehicles and provide the torque needed to accelerate those vehicles. onsemi's VE-Trac^TM family of IGBT (silicon based insulated-gate bipolar transistor) and silicon carbide (SiC) power modules are used for hybrid and EV traction inverter applications. The SiC chipset utilizes the M1 and M2 series SiC technology from onsemi, designed for 400 volt and 800 volt DC EV battery applications, by providing high current density, robust short circuit protection, high block voltage, and high operating temperature to deliver leading class performance and efficiency. SiC can withstand voltages eight times higher than traditional silicon. This ability and higher electron mobility enable SiC substrate to switch faster with lower losses and higher efficiency, which results in longer range for EVs. As range anxiety is a top deterrent for EV adoption, SiC technology can sweeten the deal for EV ownership. Additionally, from an energy efficiency standpoint measured in watt-hours per mile, EVs have about 40% increased efficiencies over traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. Through our long-term supply agreements for SiC products, onsemi anticipates estimated emissions reductions of 2,800,000 MTCO2e by the end of 2022 by replacing over 600,000 ICE cars with EVs.

• NCP1681: The latest mixed-signal controller dedicated to bridgeless totem-pole PFC (TP PFC) topology. By eliminating the lossy input diode bridge of classical PFC topology, TP PFC improves efficiency by about 2%, enabling ultimate PFC efficiency of 99%. The NCP1681 targets ultra-high density offline power supplies from 350 watts to 3 kilowatts in end products used in enterprise servers, 5G telecommunication as well as industrial and high-performance computing. In the past, TP PFC designs required the use of a microcontroller unit (MCU) that added design complexity and the need for coding. However, with the NCP1681, only a few external components and no coding are needed for a fully featured TP PFC solution, saving time, cost and space.

It's the everyday choices of individuals and businesses that can reduce emissions and develop more sustainable solutions. onsemi's sustainability and environmental social governance (ESG) team rounded up a few steps you can take to reduce your own emissions and lead a more sustainable life:

• Vote to support the environment. One of the most impactful things you can do to support emissions reductions locally and globally is voting.
• Reduce your waste: Swap out single use items for more durable options. Instead of using paper towels to clean your surfaces, cut old T-shirts into squares and use as rags. Invest in reusable silicon bags and ditch those single use sandwich bags. Kick make-up removing wipes to the curb and invest in a make-up removing towel or reusable cotton rounds.
• Find ways to reuse your waste. Repurpose empty candle jars as home décor or turn your plastic shopping bag into yard to be made into blankets for those experiencing homelessness. Be creative and have fun with the possibilities!
• Make sure you're recycling correctly. Each city has its own regulations about what can and cannot be recycled. Look into the parameters of your recycling service to ensure you are putting the correct items in your bin. The average recycling contamination rate is 25% and a single contamination event can cause the entire load to be contaminated and sent to landfill.
• Ditch the plastic. There are now 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic in our oceans. Whether it's bringing a reusable water bottle with you to refill throughout the day, swapping shampoo bottles for shampoo bars or kicking your plastic toothbrush to the curb, reducing your plastic use can have a tremendous impact.

onsemi's sustainability and ESG team hopes you find a way to celebrate Zero Emissions Day in your own way. onsemi is focused on ensuring its actions today result in a better tomorrow. To learn more about the company's net zero goal and its progress towards this promise, check out the company's 2021 Sustainability Report.