At a time when global chip production capacity is tight and the "core shortage" of the automobile industry is particularly serious, a fire broke out at a 12-inch chip factory in (Renesas), Japan, the world's third-largest automotive chip factory on Friday, which was quickly extinguished, but Renesa has decided to temporarily suspend production of the 12-inch line, and there are no plans to resume production.
It is true that house leaks have rained all night. Recently, many automotive chip manufacturers have stopped production one after another due to force majeure, which has strained the chip supply of major automobile enterprises all over the world, and many major automobile manufacturers can only temporarily stop production. The suspension of production of Renesas's 12-inch line is bound to worsen the dilemma of lack of cores.
At the beginning of this year, Japan's Earthquake ordered Renesas's chip factory to stop production for nearly half a month. In mid-to late February, extremely cold weather appeared in Texas, the United States, causing local water and power outages, causing the world's largest automotive chip factory NXP (NXP) to shut down production. Samsung Electronics and Infineon, the world's second largest chip factory, and Infineon, the world's second largest chip factory, were also doomed to stop production at their local production base.
According to a report by Renesa, Japan, a fire broke out on the first floor of the N3 floor of Renesas's NAKA factory in Ibaraki Prefecture at 2: 47 a.m. local time on Friday. At 8:12, the fire was confirmed to be extinguished and some supporting utilities were damaged. Renesas are currently assessing the extent of the damage, but there were no casualties. The 8-inch line of the NAKA plant on the N2 floor was unaffected by the fire.
As of 11:00 Friday night, Renesas had not been able to confirm whether the fire affected the safety of the clean room, the main chip production site, nor could it enter the clean room to determine the cause of the fire. At 9 a.m. on Saturday, an on-the-spot investigation will be conducted by the police and the fire department. Renesa pointed out that once the cause and impact of the fire were determined, the company would issue an announcement.
Renesas did not say what kind of chips the damaged production line mainly produces, but half of its revenue comes from the car market, which makes a variety of chips for cars, such as those used in sensors and power plants.
With the rapid development of semiconductor process technology, the linewidth of the chip has reached the nanometer level, and the corresponding products have higher and higher requirements for the production environment of semiconductor products. therefore, the running state of the semiconductor purification engineering clean room system plays an important role in the quality and pass rate of silicon chips. The smoke and dust caused by the fire does great damage to the chip production environment.
