Renesas Slated To Return To Auto Microchip Production

Renesas Electronics Corp., the world's biggest maker of automotive microcontrollers and a major element in Japan's parts shortage, issued a restart date for its last non-operational chip plant damaged in last month's earthquake. The company's tentative goal is to resume production of 200-millimeter wafers, the chips most often used in auto applications, at its Naka factory on June 15. Renesas' prior target date was early July. It began test production on April 23, the company said in a press release.

The company has also shifted automotive microcontroller production from Naka to its Tsugaru plant in northern Japan, and an affiliate chip maker in Singapore, the company said.

When the Naka factory resumes 200-millimeter output in June, it will produce 3,000 wafers a month. The plant's pre-quake rate had been 34,000 wafers a month, a spokeswoman said. By mid-May, the company aims to deliver a timetable for when chip production at both the plant's 200-millimeter and 300-millimeter wafer lines at Naka will return to pre-quake levels. More than 100 microcontrollers, or MCUs, can go into a modern vehicle and Renesas controls about 41 percent of the global market. 90 percent of its global capacity is based in Japan.

Renesas' Naka plant, in northeastern Japan, accounts for about 25 percent of its global automotive MCU capacity. It has been offline since the March 11 earthquake. Naka has two wafer lines. One makes 200-millimeter wafers that are then cut into individual microcontroller chips, some of which end up in cars. The other makes 300-millimeter wafers, divided into so-called system-on chips used mostly in digital cameras and mobile phones. The 200-millimeter chips are essential to everything from electronic parking brakes, pre-crash seat belts and engine control units, to onboard entertainment systems, stability control, and power steering.

Damage to plants in Japan has hobbled global automakers. Tier 1 suppliers that rely on such chips as a sub-component can't supply carmakers without them.

Renesas' rival, Freescale Semiconductor Inc., the world's second-biggest maker of automotive computer chips, permanently closed its only plant in Japan due to earthquake damage, and is racing to add capacity at other factories. The Austin, TX-based chipmaker had announced in 2009 it would shut down the factory by December 2011, but decided the extensive damage wasn't worth repairing with so little time left for the factory's functionality.

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