Fire in Japanese semiconductor giant factory may affect supply chain

Shibata Hideri, president of Japanese semiconductor giant Renesas Electronics, said on the 21st that a fire broke out in an important factory of the company, which may have a very large impact on the supply chain. The company will do its best to restore production to the affected factories within one month.

According to the news released by Renesas, a fire broke out in the company's Naka factory in Ibaraki Prefecture in the early morning of March 19, and the fire was extinguished five and a half hours later. The fire point is located in the "clean room", which is the core facility of the factory. The fire caused no injuries, but some equipment was damaged.

According to reports, the Naka plant is an important plant under Renesas that produces automotive semiconductors. The 300-mm wafer production line for cutting-edge products was affected this time.

Shibata said at an online press conference held on the same day that the company is very worried about the serious impact on the supply chain when such an incident occurs under the background of the tight supply of automotive chips. The company will work with relevant institutions and customers to adopt various measures to minimize the negative impact. "The company's goal is to restart production within a month, but it is still uncertain."

At the end of last year, the problem of insufficient supply in the global chip market began to become prominent. Since the beginning of this year, many automakers around the world have been forced to suspend or reduce production due to a "shortage of cores".