Renesas, a Japanese semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Tokyo, chip-making plant in Naka, Japan suffered from massive fires earlier this year. Reportedly, the plant lost 11 machines but in a recent statement, the company’s spokesperson revealed that the damage was more extensive than first thought. Although, she did not confirm a specific number she said that the chipmaker would share the extent of the damage by Tuesday.
According to reports by some publications, it is believed that the number of inoperable machines is around 17. It will take at least a month for the company to resume production at its 300mm wafer line at the fire-hit plant. However, replacing these machines can take several months. Experts believe that this outage will add to the global shortage of chips which has already disrupted the product of cars and electronic devices.
The Japanese chipmaker accounts for about 30 percent of the global market for microcontroller units used in cars, and two-thirds of the chips produced at the facility are for the auto industry. Hence, with the extended outage, that is where we will see the maximum impact.
We still don’t know what exactly caused the fire but some reports claim that it was caused by a power surge in one of the machines. This situation developed soon after an earthquake stopped production for three days last month.
