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Renesas Trims Chip Production to Hike Efficiency
Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp. says it will close an aging factory in Yamaguchi and phase out one production line at its plant in Shiga.
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Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp. says it will close an aging factory in Yamaguchi and phase out one production line at its plant in Shiga.
The cutbacks will occur over 2-3 years, with affected products dropped or their production moved elsewhere, The Nikkei reports.
The Shiga line scheduled for closure makes power semiconductors and other products for automotive and other applications. A second line, which makes laser diodes and other semiconductors, is not affected.
The Yamaguchi plant makes commodity chips used to control industrial machinery. Production will be relocated to another Renesas plant that produces the chips on 8-inch wafers, which is more economical than using Yamaguchi’s 6-inch wafer system.
Renesas aims to pare its array of domestic factories to eight from the 22 facilities it operated in 2011. That was the year that a huge earthquake damaged several of the company’s facilities and caused months of major disruptions in auto production worldwide. The struggle to recover pushed Renesas to near collapse. The company was revived by government and industry bailouts.
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