Renesas Technology Expands Back-end Process Plant in Beijing
(Business News & Technology News, 28 Mar 2008)
Renesas Technology Corp. will be investing 4 billion yens to add a new building at its back-end process plant, Renesas Semiconductor (Beijing) Co. Ltd (RSB), to increase its capacity for microcontroller (MCU) production.
Renesas aims to increase its current MCU market share from 25 percent globally (company estimates) to 30 percent to solidify its leading position by boosting the MCU production. In order to do so, Renesas will continue to provide compelling MCU-based solutions to China's growing MCU market among others. Also, Renesas is now streamlining its back-end process resources by increasing production at overseas facilities for high-volume products to remain price competitive. A new building is being added in Beijing to enable Renesas to achieve these goals.
The new building is expected to be completed and ready for full operation by the end of 2008. The expansion effort will also increase the production floor area by 60 percent, from 18,000m² to 29,000m². At the same time, RSB's total manufacturing capacity for MCUs, mixed-signal ICs and other products will increase from 50 million units per month in 2007 to 100 million units in fiscal 2012. In addition to high-volume products, RSB is also manufacturing high-quality, high-performance MCUs for automotive applications to respond to the growing demand of the Chinese automotive market.
Besides RSB in Beijing, Renesas also owns a back-end process plant in Suzhou, Renesas Semiconductor (Suzhou) Co. Ltd (RSC). Both plants (RSB and RSC) manufacture a total of 70 million units today. Overall capacity is expected to grow to 140 million units in 2012 after the new plant comes on stream.