Renesas Technology

is a Japanese semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Tokyo. The name "Renesas" is a contraction of "Renaissance Semiconductor for Advanced Solutions." The company was established in 2002 as Renesas Technology through the merger of the semiconductor divisions of Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric, excluding their DRAM businesses. In 2010, Renesas Technology merged with NEC Electronics to form the current company and adopting its present name.

Renesas was among the world's six largest semiconductor companies during the 2000s and early 2010s. As of 2023, it ranked 16th globally in semiconductor sales and second in Japan. In 2024, it ranked second in the automotive microcontroller (MCU) market behind Infineon Technologies, and third in the overall MCU market behind NXP Semiconductors and Infineon.

History

Renesas Electronics was established in April 2010 through the merger of Renesas Technology and NEC Electronics. Renesas Technology had been formed in 2003 as a joint venture between Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric, combining their non-DRAM semiconductor businesses. NEC had earlier spun off its semiconductor division as NEC Electronics in 2002. The companies had previously separated their DRAM operations into Elpida Memory, which filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and was acquired by Micron Technology.

In December 2010, Renesas Mobile Corporation was formed by integrating Renesas’s mobile business with assets acquired from Nokia. However, the company later exited the mobile sector, transferring LTE assets to Broadcom in 2013 and dissolving the subsidiary in 2014.

The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and flooding in Thailand severely impacted Renesas’s operations. A major restructuring followed, involving the sale of domestic factories and a capital infusion from the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), which became the company's largest shareholder in 2013. Renesas returned to profitability in fiscal year 2013.

From 2016 onward, Renesas embarked on a series of acquisitions to strengthen its automotive and industrial semiconductor portfolio. It acquired Intersil in 2017 and Integrated Device Technology (IDT) in 2019. In 2021, it purchased Dialog Semiconductor for $5.9 billion, followed by additional acquisitions including Celeno Communications, Reality AI, and Steradian Semiconductors.

In March 2021, a fire at the Naka Factory temporarily disrupted production, but operations resumed the following month. The company also reopened its Kofu fabrication facility to support power semiconductor production, with operations expected to begin in 2024.

Renesas continued its expansion through 2023 and 2024 with the acquisitions of Panthronics, gallium nitride chipmaker Transphorm, and PCB design software firm Altium. It also signed a long-term silicon carbide wafer supply agreement with Wolfspeed and entered a strategic partnership with Vietnamese EV maker VinFast.

In April 2023, Renesas was added to the Nikkei 225 index, and in December 2022, it received the “Outstanding Asia-Pacific Semiconductor Company Award” from the Global Semiconductor Alliance.

Products

Microcontrollers

RL78 family

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.

RX 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.

RA 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

RZ family

The Renesas RZ family is a high-end 32 & 64 bit microprocessors that is designed for the implementations of high resolution human machine interface (HMI), embedded vision, real-time control, and industrial Ethernet connectivity. It supports 6 protocols: PROFINET RT/IRT, EtherNET/IP, POWERLINK, Modbus/TCP, EtherCAT, 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.

Corporate responsibility

In March 2008, Renesas Electronics signed the UN Global Compact.

In August 2024, the companies ESG risk rating was low at just 17.5%.

Renesas' plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 38% by 2030 compared to 2021 levels have been certified by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). The company aims to become carbon-neutral by 2050 in order to minimize the impact of climate change.

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.

References

External links

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Microcontroller companies
Japanese companies established in 2010
Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange
Electronics companies established in 2010
Japanese brands
Manufacturing companies based in Tokyo
Multinational companies headquartered in Japan
Semiconductor companies of Japan