Renesas withdraw from LD/PD business and close production

Renesas has decided to withdraw from the laser diode (LD) and photo diode/detector (PD) businesses, and to close the production line at its Shiga Factory, which manufactures compound semiconductor products.

Already back in the summer of 2018 Renesas indicated its intention to close the silicon product production line within two to three years. However, following the decision to withdraw from the LD/PD business and to close the compound semiconductor production line, Renesas plans to close all production lines at the Shiga Factory as soon as practicable. Renesas initially determined that it would be able to further expand its LD/PD business in the fast-growing optical communications market by discontinuing silicon products and downsising production lines and maintaining and improving production efficiency at the Shiga Factory. However, in the past few years, technological and pricing competition has intensified, leading to a decline in the market share of existing products and delays in the development of new products for next-generation communications, making it difficult to secure the revenue initially expected. For this reason, Renesas concluded that it would be extremely difficult to secure profits on an ongoing basis even with the streamlining of production lines at the Shiga Factory. In order to maintain the production and supply of LD/PD products, Renesas has been considering the possibility to transfer productions to other sites within the Renesas Group and its partner companies in Japan and abroad. However, due to the nature of semiconductor business and products and the difficulty to realize the transfer within a reasonable time frame, the decision was made to withdraw from the LD/PD business.

Toshiba wasn't the only electronics company affected by the earthquake that struck the coast of southwestern Japan on January 22. Semiconductor manufacturer Renesas confirms that some equipment halted operation but are being restarted.

Following the major earthquakes that occurred off the coast of Kyushu, Japan on January 22, Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation has suspended operations at its semiconductor plant in Oita, southern Japan.

The US chipmaker announces that it will invest more than USD 20 billion to build two new factories and to establish a new epicenter for advanced chipmaking in the Midwest.

Intel has started to equip its Fab 34 in Leixlip, Ireland – a USD 7 billion construction project – with its first chipmaking tool.

Manz receives order from a new customer within the semiconductor industry. The order consists of equipment for Fan-Out Panel Level Packaging in microchip production.

Question: Why use point-of-load (POL) power supplies where the DC-to-DC converter is as close as possible to the load?

Battery Management semiconductor vendor, Dukosi, has partnered with GlobalFoundries to produce feature-rich chips for electric vehicles in the automotive industry.

indie Semiconductor announces that the company extending its market reach and building up a strategic presence in Japan – targeting the automotive market.

Intel has made its first purchase order for ASML’s TWINSCAN EXE:5200 system, marking the next step on the path to EUV 0.55 NA (High-NA) introduction.

Netherlands-based high-tech electronics company, Prodrive Technologies, announces a minority investment by investment company HAL.

Chroma ATE Inc. has acquired 100% of the shares of Environmental Stress Systems, Inc. (ESS).

The worlds biggest semiconductor foundry says that it will increase capital spending to between USD 40 billion and USD 44 billion this year – after having spend USD 30 billion last year.