Sustainable Product Innovation

We’re fueling sustainable product innovation by:

• Investing
  significantly in R&D to improve efficiency and reduce emissions
• Collaborating closely
  with customers, universities, and other stakeholders
• Supporting programs
  and initiatives designed to inspire experimentation and collaboration
• Collecting baseline
  data on our products’ environmental impact and designing with the planet in mind
• Investing in product
  refurbishment and reuse programs
• Living our Core
  Values of agility, teamwork, and innovation & continuous improvement

Product efficiency and sustainability go hand in hand

At Lam, we’re proving that it’s possible to maximize productivity while minimizing the use of raw materials, energy, and space. We’re optimizing our products and processes to be smarter and more efficient, in line with our company and customers’ business and sustainability goals.

These initiatives are critical to our net zero journey, as the largest portion of Lam’s emissions are generated through product use. Beyond building value for our customers through long-lasting, efficient product solutions, we’re engaging them to set and pursue science-based targets. Our approach includes:

Creating products that go further

Lam provides high-quality, low-defect consumable, and nonconsumable spare parts designed to increase circularity while balancing performance, availability, and cost. Our spares offerings leverage services including re-cleaning, repair, refurbishment, and re-coating. This enables the reuse of electrostatic chucks, radio frequency (RF) hardware, showerheads, and other high-value spare parts. By reusing these parts, we build added value into our products and reduce the environmental impacts of manufacturing new tools.

Our focus on product quality and safety is fundamental to everything we do. With oversight from our cross-functional Quality Leadership team, Lam’s product design teams ensure the products and services we provide are safe for their intended use and in compliance with market regulations and standards. We take a systematic approach to continuously improve our products and quickly address any adjustments that need to be made. Lam is also certified under ISO 9001, an international standard that provides a framework for an effective quality management system.

Preventing, reporting, and addressing product safety concerns
As part of our product release process, all new products undergo safety certification testing. We document the results in a product safety report, commonly known as a SEMI S2. Our Logistics team provides safety data sheets for materials such as cleaning fluids and lubricants. Customers can enter into service agreements with Lam to ensure proper product maintenance, and we provide customer training on the safe use of our products, typically over the span of a week-long course.

When issues related to product safety or performance arise, we notify our customer base. We also have systems in place that allow our field-service personnel and customers to report safety issues to Lam. Our Product Safety team assesses these issues to verify the safety concern. If the issue is product-related, the Product Safety team will typically generate a safety problem report to address it. If the issue is behavioral, the Product Safety team will address the matter at the local level.

Promoting safety best practices on a larger scale
We further advance product safety best practices in our industry through collaboration with customers and industry peers. For instance, Lam helps lead the SEMI Equipment Suppliers group to address new product regulations impacting the industry. For more than two decades, Lam has worked with stakeholders to develop, implement, and continually improve the SEMI Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) Guidelines for Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment. These standards are broadly used across the semiconductor industry and other industries to minimize hazards related to equipment, facilities, and work environments.

Together, we can realize new opportunities in semiconductor innovation. Through our office of the chief technology and sustainability officer, we engage leading universities, researchers, and Lam’s global engineering community to collaborate on innovative solutions for the industry’s grand challenges. For instance, through our Seminar Series, we invite internal and external speakers from all areas of the business to share leading-edge work and insights with their peers.