Nordic Semiconductor has announced it has achieved an important step in its sustainability strategy, by becoming one of the first semiconductor companies to use component reels made from recycled plastic.
Nordic Semiconductor
The switch to recycled plastic will reduce plastic waste by almost 15,000 kilograms per year.
"We’re continuously looking for ways to minimise our environmental impact,” said Ole-Fredrik Morken, executive vice president of supply chain, Nordic Semiconductor, “So, we are delighted that we, together with our trusted OSAT partners, have been able to achieve this milestone. This is especially important given that Nordic's customers are some of the world's largest 'consumers' of wireless IoT connectivity semiconductor chips, deploying hundreds of millions of devices each year with Nordic components inside.”
The majority of Nordic's component packaging reels now use reground old plastics. To meet this milestone, Nordic was required to test its recycled plastic component reels and ensure they performed as reliably as traditional non-recycled equivalents, meeting all relevant component tape-and-reel industry standards. This means the packaging didn’t break during shipping, protected Nordic's valuable semiconductor parts, and didn’t jam when fed into high-speed PCB placement machines.