Smoke on the Wafer…
As we have previously noted, a fire broke out on the first floor clean room of the building that houses the Renesas (6723.JP) 300mm semiconductor line (N3) in Hitachinak, Japan on March 19. That fire took about 6 hours to be confirmed extinguished by the local fire department and shut down the N3 line, while adjacent buildings (N2 & test) remained in production. The following day an inspection was made and it was determined that plating equipment overheated and caught fire, damaging about 5% of the clean room area, along with 11 units, or about 2% of the N3 line’s equipment.
After further inspection it was determined that an additional 12 units had been damaged (~50% of total), and the financial impact of the N3 halt to Renensas would be ¥17b ($157.2m US)/month and was originally expected to take about a month for repair and equipment replacement, which would be ~mid-April, with the company expecting to receive replacements for 11 of the damaged units at the same time. Roughly 75% of the N3 WIP was salvageable and can be used when the fab reopens.. Based on the repair work and equipment delivery schedules, the company expects to begin to ship product from WIP from the 1st floor processes on or about May 19 and WIP from 2nd floor processes on or about June 19, with expectations for a 100% recovery of the N3 fab within 100 days of the fire, which would be around June 28. The company revised their impact estimates to ¥17.5b if the recovery was to take 45 days and ¥24b ($222m US) if 60 days, excluding equipment procurement costs, inventory disposal, fixed asset impairment, and repair costs.
The company indicated that the clean room resumed operation on April 9, leading to a resumption of production around May 9, a bit ahead of schedule and on April 17 the company reported its production capacity at N3 was ~10% of production before the fire. And added an additional 7 to 10 days to the final recovery period, likely due to delays in equipment delivery. Unfortunately yesterday at 2:30 PM smoke was discovered in the N3 plant, and while the potential fire hazard was extinguished by plant staff, firefighters were called and 1st and 2nd floor production was shut down for about 3 1/2 hours. Company officials have stated that the short-term shut-down will not affect any existing production or shipment schedules. Sounds like Deep Purple 1972…
After further inspection it was determined that an additional 12 units had been damaged (~50% of total), and the financial impact of the N3 halt to Renensas would be ¥17b ($157.2m US)/month and was originally expected to take about a month for repair and equipment replacement, which would be ~mid-April, with the company expecting to receive replacements for 11 of the damaged units at the same time. Roughly 75% of the N3 WIP was salvageable and can be used when the fab reopens.. Based on the repair work and equipment delivery schedules, the company expects to begin to ship product from WIP from the 1st floor processes on or about May 19 and WIP from 2nd floor processes on or about June 19, with expectations for a 100% recovery of the N3 fab within 100 days of the fire, which would be around June 28. The company revised their impact estimates to ¥17.5b if the recovery was to take 45 days and ¥24b ($222m US) if 60 days, excluding equipment procurement costs, inventory disposal, fixed asset impairment, and repair costs.
The company indicated that the clean room resumed operation on April 9, leading to a resumption of production around May 9, a bit ahead of schedule and on April 17 the company reported its production capacity at N3 was ~10% of production before the fire. And added an additional 7 to 10 days to the final recovery period, likely due to delays in equipment delivery. Unfortunately yesterday at 2:30 PM smoke was discovered in the N3 plant, and while the potential fire hazard was extinguished by plant staff, firefighters were called and 1st and 2nd floor production was shut down for about 3 1/2 hours. Company officials have stated that the short-term shut-down will not affect any existing production or shipment schedules. Sounds like Deep Purple 1972…
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