Toward Lead- and Halogen-Free Products
Intel's proactive efforts to reduce the use of hazardous
substances have positioned us well to meet environmental
directives moving forward in the European Union.
The Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive
eliminates most uses of lead, cadmium, hexavalent-chromium,
mercury and certain fire retardants in electronics sold after
July 1, 2006. If this directive were in effect today, it would
impact about 85% of Intel products due to the current use of
tin-lead solders. However, Intel has developed several lead-free
products and continues to work on additional solutions. Our
engineers are also helping to drive industry standards and
sharing our perspective with the European Union Technical
Advisory Committee.
Material Content of Products
Based on the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) Material
Declaration Guide, Intel has developed material declaration
datasheets to communicate relevant information regarding
the material content of our product line. We have also helped
to develop an international guideline for material declaration.
This guideline represents a new common approach to communicating
to the electronics supply chain regarding materials
that are restricted for use as well as materials that should be
reported to consumers.
Far-Reaching Insights into Energy Efficiency
Traditionally, mobile processors were desktop processors
retrofitted to serve mobile needs. The advent of the Pentium® M
processor and Intel® Centrino® processor technology in March
2003 heralded processors designed specifically for notebook
performance that include a variety of energy-saving features:
Enhanced Intel SpeedStep® technology: As the workload
drops, the processor steps down to a lower voltage and
frequency, conserving battery power.
The processor has the ability to turn off parts of its high-speed
memory when not needed, resulting in an overall
reduction in platform power consumption.
Lower power consumption in the LCD panel and voltage regulator,
which together consume 40% to 50% of platform power.
Through Intel's ongoing efforts to manage power consumption,
the microprocessor now makes up a very small part of
overall system-level power use.
Intel has also moved to improve the energy efficiency of
desktop system power supplies. In studying this issue, engineers
started with two key insights:
Desktop power supplies are 50% efficient. For every 100
watts of power pulled from the wall, only 50 watts are used to
power the desktop system. The other half is dissipated in heat.
Power supplies are often designed to deliver optimal performance
at, or close to, full load. Under normal operating
conditions, most desktop systems operate at less than 50%
of full load.
As a result of these findings, Intel issued new energy-efficiency
targets as part of our Power Supply Design
Guidelines. The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
estimates that the environmental impact of implementing these
guidelines in the U.S. alone could save more than 16 billion
kilowatt-hours per year and reduce carbon dioxide emissions
by more than 10 million tons. This would result in cost savings
to end users of some $1.25 billion annually. According to
NRDC President John H. Adams, "Without Intel's leadership,
these savings would likely not have occurred."
Winning, One Watt at a Time
When the U.S. issued an executive order requiring that all
appliances use only 1 watt of power in standby mode, Intel
motherboards were using about 3 watts. Intel worked with
Dell to design the Springdale motherboard to use less energy.
Its 1-watt standby feature allows government customers to
choose Intel motherboards over those of competitors. PCs with
this feature use less power and generate less heat. They could
potentially save tens of millions of kilowatt-hours of energy
and eliminate millions of pounds of global-warming gases.
 www.intel.com/intel/other/ehs/product_ecology/Energy.htm
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