Fire Could Further Hurt Semiconductor Supply

March 23, 2021
One of the biggest suppliers of automotive chips, Renesas had to halt production at a Japanese plant on Friday after a fire broke out.

March 23, 2021—Much of the automobile manufacturing industry has come grinding to a halt due to the global shortage of semiconductors. 

A fire on Friday at a facility of one of the largest suppliers of semiconductors, Renesas Electronics Corp., is expected to make that problem even worse, Bloomberg reported. 

One of the biggest suppliers of automotive chips, Renesas had to halt production at a Japanese plant on Friday after a fire broke out in one of its clean rooms, critical areas designed to keep impurities from contaminating semiconductors. 

Chief Executive Officer Hidetoshi Shibata aims for the company to resume production within a month, but its shutdown could lead to a $156 million revenue loss, he told the press on Sunday.

In 2019, Renesas was the third-largest maker of automotive silicon. Toyota Motor Corp. is one of its biggest customers, the report said.