Preliminary investigation results of Renesas fire: electroplating equipment caught fire due to excessive current

On March 21, semiconductor giant Renesa Electronics held a press conference on the Nake plant, which was currently suspended due to fire. President Shibata Yingli apologized to neighboring residents, customers, and partners. "every effort will be made to resume production within a month, and there is also some uncertainty in some aspects, indicating that there is a possibility of delay," he said. " 2/3 of the production projects affected by the fire are on-board chips, which are in shortage worldwide, and it will take about a month to resume production, which is likely to affect the production of automakers.

The fire broke out at the Ibaraki factory at 02:47 local time on March 19 and at the N3 building in the plant, and was not put out until 08:12 on March 20, Renesa said in a statement.

After an investigation, local police personnel initially believed that the cause of the fire was that the electroplating equipment on the first floor of the N3 building caught fire due to excessive current, because the heat resistance of the equipment shell and plating bath was relatively low, and if the current was too high, there would be a fire crisis. It's just that the cause of the excessive current has not yet been determined.

It is reported that the pure water supply, air conditioning and electroplating baths in the factory were damaged after the fire. The area of the fire is about 600sq m, the factory area on the first floor is about 12000 square meters, and the area affected by the fire is about 5%; the loss of machines in the field is about 11, accounting for 2% of the number of 12 machines, and the loss on the production line is still being confirmed, and it is estimated that it will take a week.

As for the expected recovery progress of the factory, Renesa pointed out that in the normal operation of the N2 (8-inch plant), the production of the N3 (12-inch plant) is currently stopped, and at this stage, cleaning clean rooms and the relocation of the new machine is a priority, with the goal of resuming work in one month, although there is no damage on the second floor, but because it is the same system operation as the first floor, production has to be shut down.

For the automobile industry, the biggest concern is whether there can be other alternatives to production. In this regard, Renesas pointed out in a statement that at present, 2/3 of the technology in the N3 plant can support each other's production with the fab, but now that the semiconductor production capacity is tight, it is not easy to transfer all of it immediately, but it will try its best to communicate and coordinate with the fab.

Renesas has about 20 per cent of the global market share in MCU, making it the world's second-largest manufacturer. As for how much performance of the N3 plant will be destroyed by the fire, Renesa pointed out that at present, the N3 plant has a revenue of about 17 billion yen a month, and how much performance will be affected by the fire is still being confirmed.