semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. ...
manufacturer headquartered in
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...
, Japan, initially incorporated in 2002 as Renesas Technology, the consolidated entity of the semiconductor units of Hitachi and Mitsubishi excluding their dynamic random-access memory businesses, to which
NEC
is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...
Electronics merged in 2010, resulting in a minor change in the corporate name and logo to as it is now.
In the 2000s to early 2010s, Renesas had been one of the six largest semiconductor companies in the world. As of 2022, it is the world's third-largest automotive semiconductor company and the largest microcontroller supplier. The company also has presences in the markets of analogue and
mixed-signal integrated circuit
A mixed-signal integrated circuit is any integrated circuit that has both analog circuits and digital circuits on a single semiconductor die.memory devices, and
SoCs
SOCS (suppressor of cytokine signaling proteins) refers to a family of genes involved in inhibiting the JAK-STAT signaling pathway.
Genes
* CISH
* SOCS1
* SOCS2
* SOCS3
* SOCS4
* SOCS5
* SOCS6
* SOCS7
Suppressor of cytokine signaling 7 is a pro ...
.
The brand Renesas is a contraction of "Renaissance Semiconductor for Advanced Solutions".
History
Renesas Electronics started operation in April 2010, through the integration of
NEC Electronics
is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network solut ...
, established in November 2002 as a spin-off of the semiconductor operations of NEC with the exception of the DRAM business, and Renesas Technology established on April 1, 2003, the non-DRAM chip
joint venture
A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and economic risk, risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four rea ...
of Hitachi and Mitsubishi, with their ownership percentage of 55 and 45 in order. The DRAM businesses of the three had become part of
Elpida Memory
Micron Memory Japan, K.K. is a Japanese subsidiary of Micron Technology. It was formerly known as established in 1999 that developed, designed, manufactured and sold dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) products. It was also a semiconductor fou ...
, which went bankrupt in 2012 before being acquired by Micron Technology.
A basic agreement to merge was reached by April 2010 and materialized on the first day, forming the fourth largest semiconductor company by revenue according to an estimation from iSuppli.
In December 2010, Renesas Mobile Corporation (RMC) was created by integrating the Mobile Multimedia Business Unit of Renesas with the acquired Nokia Wireless Modem Business Unit.
In 2011, Renesas Electronics was adversely affected by the
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
The occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on 11 March. The magnitude 9.0–9.1 (M) undersea megathrust earthquake had an epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region, and lasted approximately six mi ...
and flooding in
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
. In 2012, the company, which had about 50 thousand employees of manufacturing, design and sales operations in about 20 countries in 2011, decided to restructure its business, including the sale and consolidation of its Japanese domestic plants, to become profitable. In December 2012,
INCJ
The , headquartered in Tokyo,
is a public-private partnership between the Japanese government and 19 major corporations.
The INCJ was established as a temporary (15 years) corporate entity on July 27, 2009; with the prime objective of "boosti ...
, a Japanese public-private fund, and several key clients decided to invest in the company. Through the investment, Renesas aimed to secure 150 billion yen as fresh capital by September 2013 and make use of it for investment in development of the microcontroller and analog and power chips for automotive and industrial uses, plant improvements, and corporate acquisitions.
In January 2013, Renesas transferred some of its back-end plants to J-Devices.
In September 2013,
Broadcom
Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...
acquired most of Renesas Mobile Communication.
With the allotment of third-party shares to the nine investors completed in September 2013, INCJ became the largest shareholder in the company. Renesas announced its new business direction and issued its corporate presentation titled "Reforming Renesas” in October 2013.
In the fiscal year ended in March 2014, Renesas recorded its first ever net profit since it started operation as Renesas Electronics Corporation in 2010.
In July 2014, the subsidiary Renesas Mobile Communication was consolidated, after the company had decided to withdraw from the 4G wireless business.
In September 2014, the sale of the display driver IC unit of Renesas to
Synaptics
Synaptics is a publicly owned San Jose, California-based developer of human interface (HMI) hardware and software, including touchpads for computer laptops; touch, display driver, and fingerprint biometrics technology for smartphones; and touc ...
was completed.
In September 2016, Renesas announced that it would acquire
Intersil
Intersil is an American semiconductor company headquartered in Milpitas, California. As of February 24, 2017, Intersil is a subsidiary of Renesas. The previous Intersil was formed in August 1999 through the acquisition of the semiconductor busin ...
for $3.2 billion. In February 2017, Renesas completed the acquisition.
In April 2017, Renesas unveiled a
self-driving
A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for S ...
concept car
A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle, show vehicle or prototype) is a car made to showcase new styling and/or new technology. They are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or ...
at a global developer conference, stating that it will start delivering a new line of products for self-driving cars in December 2017, as it takes on global giants such as
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
. The new technology acts as an onboard nerve center, coordinating and controlling vehicle functions.
In September 2018, Renesas announced that it has agreed to buy
Integrated Device Technology
Integrated Device Technology, Inc., is an American corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, that designs, manufactures, and markets low-power, high-performance mixed-signal semiconductor solutions for the advanced communications, com ...
for $6.7 billion. The acquisition was completed in March 2019.
In 2020, Renesas announced its plans to wind down its production of diodes and the compound device.
In February 2021, Renesas announced that it has agreed to buy
Dialog Semiconductor
Dialog Semiconductor PLC is an American founded UK-Domiciled manufacturer of semiconductor-based system solutions. The company is headquartered in the United Kingdom in Reading, with a global sales, R&D and marketing organization. Dialog create ...
for $5.9 billion. The acquisition was completed in September 2021.
In March 2021, a fire at the Naka Factory owned by a subsidiary of Renesas caused significant damage to equipment. On April 17, 2022, Renesas restarted its production at the Naka Factory.
In August 2021, Renesas completed the acquisition of Dialog Semiconductor Plc, a leading provider of battery and power management, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth® low energy and Industrial edge computing solutions.
In December 2021, Renesas also completed the acquisition of Celeno Communications, a provider of smart Wi-Fi solutions.
In March 2022, Renesas and
Tata Elxsi
The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest conglomerate, with products and services in over 150 countries, and operations in 100 countries across six continents ...
established a Next-generation EV Innovation Center (NEVIC) in Bangalore, to develop targeted solutions for electric vehicles. In June 2022, Renesas announced a strategic partnership with
Tata Motors
Tata Motors Limited is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturing company, headquartered in Mumbai, India, which is part of the Tata Group. The company produces passenger cars, trucks, vans, coaches, buses.
Formerly known as Tata Eng ...
Tata Group
The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest conglomerate, with products and services in over 150 countries, and operations in 100 countries across six continents ...
companies. The companies entered a partnership for the development and production of semiconductor solutions for automotive, IoT and 5G semiconductor solutions for emerging markets including India.
In May 2022 Renesas announced the re-opening of its "Kofu" Fab which will utilize the 300mm geometry for the fabrication of power semiconductors. The facility is scheduled to be online in 2024.
In July 2022, Renesas completed the acquisition of Reality Analytics, Inc. Adding additional resources for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.
In October 2022, Renesas completed the acquisition of Steradian Semiconductors Private Limited, a fabless semiconductor company providing 4D imaging radar solutions.
In September 2022, Renesas signed a strategic partnership with
VinFast
VinFast LLC is a Vietnamese private automotive company headquartered in Vietnam. Established in 2017, it is a member of the conglomerate organization Vingroup, that was founded by Phạm Nhật Vượng. It is the first Vietnamese car brand t ...
from
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
to announce expanding agreement of automotive technology development of electric vehicles (EVs) and delivery of system components.
In December 2022, Renesas won the 2022 “Outstanding Asia-Pacific Semiconductor Company Award” by Global Semiconductor Alliance.
Products
The offerings of Renesas Electronics include:
* Microcontrollers:
RL78
RL78 Family is a 16-bit CPU core for embedded microcontrollers of Renesas Electronics introduced in 2010.
Architecture
Although it has eight 8-bit registers or four 16-bit register pairs, essentially all arithmetic operations are performed ...
Microprocessor
A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...
s:
SuperH
SuperH (or SH) is a 32-bit reduced instruction set computing (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Hitachi and currently produced by Renesas. It is implemented by microcontrollers and microprocessors for embedded systems.
At the ...
V850
V850 is a 32-bit RISC CPU architecture produced by Renesas Electronics for embedded microcontrollers. It was designed by NEC as a replacement for their earlier NEC V60 family, and was introduced shortly before NEC sold their designs to Renesas ...
,
M32R
The M32R is a 32-bit RISC instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Mitsubishi Electric for embedded microprocessors and microcontrollers. The ISA is now owned by Renesas Electronics Corporation, and the company designs and fabricates M32R im ...
RL78 is the family name for a range of 16-bit microcontrollers. These were the first new MCU to emerge from the new Renesas Electronics company after the merger of NEC Electronics and Renesas Technology. These Microcontrollers incorporate the core features of the NEC 78K0R (150 nm MF2 flash process) and many familiar peripherals from legacy Renesas R8C microcontrollers. The RL78 core variants include the S1, S2, and S3 type cores which evolved from the NEC 78K0R core. The basic S1 core support 74 instructions, the S2 core adds register banking and supports 75 instructions, while the S3 core adds an on-chip multiplier / divider / multiple-accumulate and supports 81 instructions.
The RL78 was developed to address extremely low power but highly integrated microcontroller applications, to this end the core offered a novel low power mode of operation called “snooze mode” where the ADC or serial interface can be programmed to meet specific conditions to wake the device from the extreme low power STOP mode of 0.52uA.
The RX MCU family
The RX, an acronym for Renesas Xtreme, is the family name for a range of 32-bit microcontrollers developed by Renesas, as opposed to the H family and the MC family, launched by Hitachi and Mitsubishi respectively.
The RX family was launched in 2009 by Renesas Technology with the first product range designated the RX600 series and targeting applications such as metering, motor control, human–machine interfaces (HMI), networking, and industrial automation. Since 2009 this MCU family range has been enlarged with a smaller variant the RX200 series and also through enhanced performance versions.
Key to the high performance of the microcontroller is the CISC architecture with high performance integrated flash memory enabling the central processing unit (CPU) to operate at very high frequency, 100 MHz, without requiring wait-states for the memory accesses resulting in performance up to 1.65 DMIPS/MHz.
The RA MCU family
The RA, an acronym for Renesas Advanced, is the family name for a range of 32-bit microcontrollers with Arm Cortex processor cores. The RA family's key features are the stronger embedded security, high-performance, and CoreMark ultra-low power operation. It also has a comprehensive partner ecosystem and Flexible Software Package for the users.
Microprocessors
The RZ Arm-based 32 & 64-bit family
The Renesas RZ family is a high-end 32 & 64 bit
microprocessor
A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...
s that is designed for the implementations of high resolution human machine interface (HMI), embedded vision embedded artificial intelligence (e-AI) real-time control, and industrial ethernet connectivity. It supports 6 protocols: PROFINET,
EtherNET/IP
EtherNet/IP (IP = Industrial Protocol) is an industrial network protocol that adapts the Common Industrial Protocol (CIP) to standard Ethernet. EtherNet/IP is one of the leading industrial protocols in the United States and is widely used in a r ...
, POWERLINK, Modbus/TCP, EtherCAT, RT/IRT, TSN and Sercos III.
The family includes, RZ/A and RZ/G for HMI, RZ/T for high-speed real-time control, and RZ/N for the network.
Corporate affairs
The largest stockholders and their ownership ratio of Renesas are as follows as of June 30, 2022.
At the beginning of June 2022, Renesas announced its completion of an approx. 200 billion yen worth buyback of its shares.
At the end of September 2013, Renesas issued new shares through third-party allotment resulting in INCJ becoming the new largest shareholder and non-parental controlling shareholder.
In early May 2012, NEC transferred part of its stake in Renesas to its employee pension trust. As a result, the NEC pension fund held 32.4 percent of Renesas while NEC had 3.0 percent.
Manufacturing sites
As of 2022, the in-house wafer fabrication of the semiconductor device is conducted by Renesas Electronics and Renesas Semiconductor Manufacturing, a wholly owned subsidiary, operating five front-end plants in the following areas:
* Naka, Takasaki, Saijo, Kawashiri, Palm Bay
The back-end facilities, directly affiliated to Renesas Electronics and its subsidiaries, are located in:
* Yonezawa, Oita, Nishiki, Beijing, Suzhou, Kuala Lumpur, Penang
In May 2022 Renesas announced the re-opening of the "Kofu" Fab which will utilize the 300mm geometry for the fabrication of power semiconductors. The facility is scheduled to be online in 2024.https://www.renesas.com/jp/en/about/press-room/renesas-invest-and-restart-operation-kofu-factory-300mm-wafer-fab-dedicated-power-semiconductors