Dinesh Selvaraj | CMP Process Engineer, NXP Fishkill, United States

Internships have always been a great way to bring bright, enthusiastic people into the organization, but at our industrial site in Fishkill, a new program is doing more than attracting talent - it‘s helping find creative ways to conserve natural resources and reduce our impact on the environment.

It started in 2006, when Dinesh Selvaraj became the first student to participate in New York State‘s Green Engineering Internship Program, a cooperative effort between the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Clarkson University, and NXP‘s Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) and Engineering departments. “The idea was to place interns in positions where they could address issues of pollution and conservation,” explains Dinesh, “and I was the guinea pig.”

As a PhD candidate, Dinesh had been working on process engineering with an emphasis on energy conservation. Arriving at the Fishkill facility, he opted to study the use of de-ionized (DI) water in the manufacturing step called Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP). “When I learned that a third of the site‘s DI water is used in CMP, I figured it was a good place to start looking for ways to conserve.”

CMP is an abrasive process that uses a chemical slurry to smooth the surface of the silicon wafer before more circuitry is added. The wafers are kept wet before and after polishing, and any excess DI water with unused slurry in it has to be treated before being discharged.

There are dozens of CMP machines in use at the site, and Dinesh found remarkable variations in the amount of water used in each. He proposed installing a control system that would regulate the flow of DI water, giving each machine a consistent, predictable supply.

NXP acted on his proposal and anticipates that the new control system will deliver stellar results: 27 million liters of DI water saved each year, significant reductions in the amount of slurry waste, and a total annual savings of nearly $200,000. “Not bad for a guinea pig,” he says with a smile.

Dinesh has since finished his PhD and joined NXP as a full-time CMP engineer. “When NXP made the offer, I took it immediately. I loved my internship - the people were great and I looked forward to going to work each day. I received great mentoring and discovered that CMP is a field with lots of opportunities to grow.”

The Green Internship program has since been expanded and now places interns statewide. NXP has also continued its participation, and currently has an intern looking at ways to recycle DI water.