Renesas

Renesas Says Fire-Hit Chip Plant to Restart By Mid-April

By Betty C. Morrow 2 weeks ago
Renesas May Complete Naka Plant Inspections Early

Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

Renesas Electronics Corp. said production at a semiconductor factory hit by a fire is on track to resume by mid-April, welcome news from one of the top providers of automotive chips amid a global shortage.

One of the company’s most advanced lines at its plant in Naka, north of Tokyo, has been halted since a fire broke out late on March 19. Production will resume after about a month, as Renesas had previously projected, Chief Executive Officer Hidetoshi Shibata said at a briefing in Tokyo on Tuesday.

A recovery to full production may take 100 days, he said, though progress in the damaged clean room is ahead of schedule. About three-quarters of the work in progress was undamaged by the fire, he added.

“We are increasingly confident in our chances of achieving the goal,” Shibata said in the online briefing.

Booming demand for laptops,

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Japan car makers scramble to assess impact of Renesas auto chip-plant fire

By Betty C. Morrow 3 weeks ago

TOKYO (Reuters) – Toyota, Nissan, Honda and other Japanese automakers scrambled on Monday to assess the production impact of a fire at a Renesas Electronics automotive chip plant that could aggravate a global semiconductor shortage.

“We are gathering information and trying to see if this will affect us or not,” a Honda spokesman said. Other car makers including Toyota and Nissan said they too were assessing the situation.

The effect on car makers could spread beyond Japan to other auto companies in Europe and the United States because Renesas has around a 30% global share of microcontroller unit chips used in cars.

Renesas said it will take at least a month to restart production on a 300mm wafer line at its Naka plant in northeast Japan after an electrical fault caused machinery to catch fire on Friday and poured smoke into the sensitive clean room.

Two-thirds of production at the

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Toyota Leads Losses After Renesas Fire Stokes Chip Crunch Fears

By Betty C. Morrow 3 weeks ago

(Bloomberg) — Japanese automaker shares fell Monday after a fire unexpectedly halted one of chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp.’s largest plants, exacerbating a growing global shortage of automotive semiconductors.

Renesas slid as much as 5.4%, while customers from Toyota Motor Corp. to Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. also fell in early trading. One of the biggest suppliers of car chips, Renesas was forced to halt a Japanese plant Friday after a fire broke out in one of its clean rooms, critical areas designed to keep impurities from contaminating semiconductors.

Toyota said Monday it’s trying to gauge the fallout from that unexpected halt, which could ripple across an industry already struggling to keep assembly lines operating during a severe shortage of chips. The Renesas fire will likely worsen a crunch that stemmed from booming demand for home and work gadgets during the pandemic, estimated earlier this year to cost global

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Renesas says it will take at least a month to restart fire-damaged chip line

By Betty C. Morrow 3 weeks ago

Bloomberg

Turkish Markets Slide as Agbal’s Dismissal Stokes Lira Turmoil

(Bloomberg) — Turkey’s stocks, bonds and the lira tumbled as the shock dismissal of the country’s central bank chief triggered concern the country is headed for a fresh bout of currency turbulence.In one of the sharpest sell-offs in years, the Borsa Istanbul Index lost more than 8%, triggering circuit breakers that halted trading. The lira weakened almost 15% while yields on Turkish local and dollar bonds soared.The turmoil underscores concern President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s removal of Naci Agbal after just four months as governor marks an end to a period of policy orthodoxy that had briefly restored the lira’s fortunes after a 20% retreat last year. Agbal’s successor, Sahap Kavcioglu, a columnist and university professor, has been a critic of the recent interest-rate increases enacted under Agbal’s stewardship, including last week’s larger-than-expected hike.A “haze of volatility” has returned to Turkish

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