Over the past two decades, Micron has built deep relationships with its Chinese customers and continues to invest in the Chinese market. Recently, Micron's Xi'an plant has been even more dynamic.

From November 05 to November 10, 2024, Micron, as an industry leader in memory and storage solutions, will once again be present at the 7th China International Import Expo (CIIE). With the theme of “Deep plowing in storage field, empowering digital China”, Micron comprehensively displayed a series of industry-leading memory and storage solutions at this year's Expo, highlighting its contributions and achievements in the Chinese market.

At this year's Expo, Micron shared the latest progress of the Xi'an packaging and testing plant expansion project, and shared with relevant partners around the theme of “Talking about Empowerment: Business and Sustainable Development Co-Existing Together”.

Xi'an Plant Recognized for Environmental Protection

Zero carbon and sustainable development have long been Micron's philosophy, and Micron Xi'an plant has successfully won two recognitions for its continuous efforts and pursuit of excellence.

The first one is the “Zero Carbon Factory (Type I Five Star)” certificate issued by China Quality Certification Center (CQC).

Ms. Wu Mingxia, General Manager of Micron Technology China, said that this certificate is an important milestone for Micron to move towards the net-zero goal, and it is a great recognition of Micron's efforts in zero-carbon emission management and carbon reduction. She emphasized that climate change is closely related to every enterprise and every person. Micron China is steadfast on the road to achieving carbon emission reduction, and has deployed many carbon emission reduction projects such as environmentally friendly thermal fluid, environmentally friendly refrigerants, heat pumps, digital energy systems, green power trading and other projects over the past period of time, and will continue to explore new technologies and methods in the future to produce and operate in a more efficient and environmentally friendly way.

Yu Jie, Director of China Quality Certification Center, said Micron has made many efforts to promote energy saving and emission reduction by establishing greenhouse gas reduction targets, including green energy applications, the use of waste heat and pressure, and intelligent systems, and offsetting the remaining portion with carbon.

The second was the “UL 2799 Gold Level Verification for Zero Waste to Landfill” issued by UL Solutions.

Wu Mingxia said that obtaining the UL 2799 Zero Waste to Landfill Gold Verification is an important recognition of Micron Technology's excellence in waste resource management. Due to production activities, human beings are demanding resources from the earth, and pollution and resource waste are one of the three major issues in the global environment. Resource efficiency issues are closely related to industrial supply chain resilience, the circular economy, and carbon emissions management, and Micron's Xi'an plant is engaged in the fine management of waste, working with upstream and downstream partners to improve resource efficiency, reduce environmental footprints, and save costs through minimization, recycling, and resourcing.

Jun Shi, General Manager of UL Certification Suzhou, said that sustainable, recyclable and reusable are very important research topics and directions, and Micron, as an industry-leading, world-class company, has obtained gold-level verification of zero landfill (projects that have achieved a waste diversion rate of 95% to 99% or more). In the future, we hope to continue to work with Micron to push our commitment to social sustainability and circular economy to an even higher level, i.e., platinum level validation (projects that have consistently achieved a 100% landfill diversion rate).

Building a Sustainable Ecosystem Together, Micron and LONGi Green Energy Signed a Cooperation Agreement

At the conference, Micron and LONGi Green Energy held a cooperation signing ceremony, in which both parties will carry out in-depth cooperation in the field of sustainable development and jointly explore innovative models and solutions.

According to the on-site introduction by Xie Tian, General Manager of Strategic Management Center of LONGi Green Energy, LONGi joined the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) from 2020, and became the first PV company to be certified by SBTi last year. By the end of 2023, the amount of silicon wafers shipped by LONGi has reached 414GW, equivalent to 27% of the global PV installed capacity, and the cumulative total exceeds 812 million if calculated in terms of the emission reduction effect brought by the green power generated.

The Hi-MO X6 series products supplied to Micron are representative products of LONGi Green Energy, which are characterized by anti-hail, anti-wind step and anti-dust accumulation. Recently, LONGi Green Energy has also launched the HPBC second generation distributed product Hi-MO X10, which has the highest power generation efficiency per unit area in the world, and we look forward to applying these products to buildings to reduce emissions in the future.

Becoming a model in the ESG field, Micron Technology's excellent cases are included

In August this year, the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China) released its Social Impact Report, which included Micron Technology's outstanding cases.

Joanna Ma, Vice President of AmCham China, shared her thoughts on Micron's case study, pointing out that Micron has practiced sustainability goals in its daily operations. For example, Micron's Xi'an plant has a waste recycling rate of 99.7%, which is truly zero landfill. In addition, Micron's sustainability program action items cover a wide range of areas, not only in its own business, but also with a strong focus on community building. Joanna Ma added, “Micron's ESG team works very rigorously, and in the process of communicating with Micron's team, there were many rounds of discussions and double-checks on both data disclosure and proofreading of Chinese and English details.”

For his part, Hongyin Dai, Director of Sustainability at Micron Technology China, shared at the conference that Micron has carried out sustainability initiatives in all areas of procurement, logistics, warehousing, production, and operations, and that the year 2024 is the ninth release of the SDGs, and that Micron will make its Xi'an plant its first global center of excellence for sustainability.

Hongyin Dai further shared a set of data: In terms of GHG emissions (Scope 1), Micron Xi'an plant plans to achieve 90% absolute reduction in 2025 compared to the baseline year of 2020, and 85% of the target has already been achieved as of September 2024; in terms of energy, Micron Xi'an plant plans to achieve 100% renewable electricity use by 2025, and the target has already been achieved as of September 2024; in terms of water, the target has already been achieved as of September 2024; and in terms of water, Micron Xi'an plant plans to achieve 100% renewable electricity use by 2024, and the target has already been achieved as of September 2024 September 2024 this target has been achieved; on water, the plan is to increase the water conservation rate to 100% by 2025, as of September 2024 50% of this target has been achieved; on waste, the plan is to achieve 100% waste resourcing and zero landfill by 2025, as of September 2024 98% of this target has been achieved.

Empowering Partners, Co-Existing Business and Sustainability

Realizing sustainable development is never a solo endeavor, and Micron also demonstrated its ecosystem at the Expo. In the roundtable discussion on the theme of “Empowerment: Co-Existence of Business and Sustainable Development”, the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham) and Micron's partners, Schneider Electric, LONGi Green Energy, Xinsong Robotics, and China Construction First Bureau Group (CCBG), expressed their views one after another.

Schneider's cooperation with Micron is on three levels. Xiong Yi, Senior Vice President, Head of Strategy and Business Development China, Schneider Electric, said that the first level lies in ensuring the stability of energy and power supply, and Schneider and Micron have done a lot of R&D and innovation to ensure that the enterprise-level microgrids after new energy access are safe, stable and reliable; the second level lies in the improvement of energy efficiency, and the global factories of Schneider Electric, LONGi Green Energy, and Micron used to have long-term The second layer lies in energy efficiency improvement, and Schneider Electric has a long-term cooperation with LONGi Green Energy and Micron's global factories in the past to analyze basic energy data and help improve efficiency; the third layer lies in improving the proportion and efficiency of self-consumption, and the cooperation in this regard includes the construction of a more synergistic and optimized optical storage and charging system and the realization of microgrid dispatch.

Xinsong Robotics and Micron have cooperated a lot on intelligent logistics. Yang Biao, president of Shanghai Xinsong Robotics Co., Ltd. introduced its intelligent warehouse system for Micron, which covers an area of 30% less than the traditional program, adopts an advanced WMS system, and continuously optimizes the operation efficiency during the monitoring process, which reduces the resource consumption and cost of the overall system. As there are many human-machine interactions in the intelligent storage system, it has passed the TüV safety certification, which strengthens the safety of equipment and people. What's more, the whole supply chain can be made more transparent through the information system, which helps Micron.

LONGi Green Energy helped complete the rooftop photovoltaic system of the Xi'an factory. Xie Tian emphasized that as Micron's PV solution provider, its own emission reduction and low-carbon products can also help Micron achieve its emission reduction goals. Since last year, LONGi Green Energy has established a Board of Directors' Strategy and Sustainability Committee and also appointed the company's Chief Sustainability Officer, continuing to improve its ESG governance mechanism, while increasing its investment in environmental protection by 38% compared to the previous year.

For its part, China Construction First Bureau is the general contractor for the Xi'an plant project. Liu Weiwei, general manager of the Technology and Quality Center of China Construction Yibei Group Construction and Development Co., Ltd. said that China Construction Yibei entered the site in March and topped out the structure in early November, always practicing the principles of water-, energy-, land-, and material-saving, and carrying out the whole process of certified activities, from the initial site selection, planning, and design, to the mid-period of construction, and to the later period of operation and maintenance. For example, in the B5 project, low volatile indoor material products were selected; highly reflective coatings were applied to the roofing surface, making the SRI value (solar reflection coefficient) reach more than 95, thus reducing the energy consumption of building cooling and mitigating the urban heat island effect; rainwater collection tanks were designed throughout the project, and part of the purified rainwater was used for watering of landscaping and part was used for domestic water; and water-saving sanitary wares were selected.

Reviewing its development history in China, Micron continues to increase its investment in Xi'an.

To date, Micron's investment in Xi'an has reached more than 11 billion RMB.

In June 2023, Micron announced an additional investment of RMB 4.3 billion in Xi'an for the expansion of a new plant and the introduction of a new production line to produce a wider range of product solutions including mobile DRAM, NAND and SSDs, and to further expand the Xi'an plant's existing DRAM packaging and testing capabilities. The groundbreaking ceremony for Micron Technology's new Xi'an facility was held in March of this year to officially break ground; in November, the main structure of the building was topped out, and it is expected to go into production in the second half of 2025.

To date, Micron Xi'an's total import and export volume has been ranked No. 1 in Shaanxi Province for 17 consecutive years, making an outstanding contribution to the local economy of Xi'an, while Micron's local suppliers in China have played a key role in building the semiconductor ecosystem.

At the end of the conference, Micron emphasized its commitment to ESG as a leading storage company.

At the conference, Micron emphasized that storage is everywhere in the information age, and as a storage leader, its products are empowering every aspect of society.

According to the International Energy Agency's Clean Energy Progress Report 2023, the total power consumption of data centers around the world has reached 1% to 1.5% of the total power consumption of human society, and the power consumed by residential electronic devices is an even larger figure. Based on this background, Micron focuses on the sustainability of its products while providing cutting-edge performance.

For example, the latest technology used in Micron's LPDDR5 offers a 15% increase in power efficiency over its predecessor, in other words, lower power consumption, and Micron emphasizes the three aspects of functional safety, low power consumption, and recycling economy, and based on these important principles, Micron continues to empower its customers and the society to achieve common sustainable development.