Renesas fire likely to exasperate chip shortage
Japanese chip maker expects 17 billion yen sales loss Fire follows Infineon and NXP's shutdown
Renesas Electronics has suffered a fire in its facilities over the weekend that will likely exasperate the ongoing global chip shortage that is affecting automobile production.
The company said its N3 building at its Naka plants in Japan suffered fire on Friday. The fire was put down in around five hours. The affected plant uses 300mm wafer production and manufacturers microcontroller units for automobiles.
The fire damaged 5% of its clean room and led to loss of 11 machines, which accounts for 2% of N3’s production facilities.
Renesas said excess current caused the fire. It is investigating the fire further.
The company was aiming to restart production at N3 within a month. It is expecting 17 billion yen in lost sales from the unexpected halt.
Renesas is the world’s third largest automobile chip maker, after Infineon and NXP.
The latter two also saw their factories at Austin, Texas halt production temporary in February due to the freeze there.
Toyota, a customer of Renesas, is expected to be the most affected by Renesas’ fire. The Japanese automobile giant said it is planning to half production at its factory in Czechoslovakia for two weeks due to the current semiconductor shortage.