Last year a major fire in Japan @ AKM wiped out their factory. AKM ICs were used widely by many of the major CE brands for TV displays, audio and PC products. Once again, disaster strikes now emerging for another factory destroyed in a major fire in late March that forced yet another semiconductor (chip) fabrication plant (fab) off-line. The fire demolished the entire first floor of the Renesas Electronics factory in Hitachinaka, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.
Renesas Electronics is the second largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world, behind only NXP Semiconductors, in making chips largely for the automotive and CE industries. The company’s CEO, Hidetoshi Shibata, estimates it will take up to 6 months to “fully recover”. However, much of their lost production will not be made up from getting this factory back on-line, but rather through increasing production at some their other 6 factories located in Japan.
Just my $0.02...
