UPDATE 1-Renesas warns some production hit by Japan chip plant fire

(Adds detail of harm)

March 20 (Reuters) – Renesas Electronics, a key dealer of automobile semiconductors, acknowledged on Saturday that it had rapid halted production of 300mm wafers after a fire at its superior Naka chip plant in northeast Japan.

Friday’s fire, which didn’t afflict any staff, burned 600 sq. metres of the 300mm trim room, including 2% of the manufacturing equipment, the Jap company acknowledged.

Any extend to shipments would come as possibilities, particularly carmakers, are combating a worldwide chip shortage as a end result of the COVID-19-pushed articulate in user electronics and unexpected trusty rebound in auto gross sales.

“The impacts to manufacturing equipment, work in process and the financial impacts to (the) company is undetermined,” Renesas acknowledged in a press liberate. It failed to articulate when it meant to restart production on the damaged line.

Manufacturing on the relaxation of the plant was as soon as unaffected by the blaze, which was as soon as prompted by an electrical fault which police and fire division officers are investigating, it added.

Renesas was as soon as compelled to close down production on the Naka plant for a pair of days in February after an earthquake slice energy to the power and wait on up mills failed to launch.

The deadly earthquake that devastated Japan’s northeast coasts and destroyed the Fukushima nuclear plant a decade previously compelled Renesas to close the power for three months. (Reporting by Tim Kelly and Amruta Khandekar; Bettering by Aditya Soni and Alexander Smith)