Japanese automotive semiconductor giant Renesas Electronics (Renesas) announced on July 6 that due to localized thunderstorms brought by Typhoon Avery No. 4, the company's Kawajiri plant in Kumamoto, Japan, was hit by lightning and experienced a momentary drop in voltage, and some production equipment was temporarily shut down on Tuesday (5), while clean room operations remained normal.

According to information released by Renesas, after 17:30 Japan time on Tuesday afternoon, the transmission line of the Kawajiri plant was struck by lightning and a momentary drop in voltage occurred. The company said that in order to prevent the problem of instantaneous voltage drop, there are preventive measures such as the introduction of the Uninterruptible Power Supply System (UPS), but this time the voltage drop was too long, causing about 90% of the production equipment to stop. In addition, the company said that the Kawajiri plant has restarted part of the process on Wednesday, and is expected to return to the previous production capacity next Monday (11).

The Kawajiri plant mainly produces MCU for automobiles, and some semi-finished products are expected to be scrapped due to the instantaneous voltage drop problem. Including the scrapped parts, it is estimated that the reduction in production will be equivalent to two weeks of production at most.

In addition to the lightning strike on the transmission line, Renesas' Japanese factories have also been hit by minor disasters recently.

On the night of June 26, an earthquake with a seismic intensity of 5 or less struck the Kyushu region of Japan, with the epicenter in Kumamoto Prefecture. Renesas' Kawajiri Plant (Kumamoto City, Kumamoto Prefecture) and Nishiki Plant (Nishiki Town, Kumamoto Prefecture) were located near the epicenter, but the buildings, utilities and manufacturing equipment were not damaged and both plants continued their work. Some of the equipment at the Kawajiri plant was out of operation. The earthquake, however, did not have any impact on Renesas Electronics' entire supply chain, including suppliers and partner companies.

Renesas' global market share of automotive MCUs is about 17% (2020 data), and its automotive MCUs are mainly used in automotive instrumentation, car engines, engine management, motor control and chassis, with a near monopoly in instrumentation and car engines.

At present, Renesas' automotive-grade chips are still in short supply, but compared to last year and the first quarter of this year has eased, the spot market shows two extremes, shortage of series more shortage, the price remains high, on the other hand, not shortage of products bargaining space is increasing.