Renesas putting Japan on global chip-making map

TOKYO – Renesas Electronics plans to acquire printed circuit board electronic design company Altium and gallium nitride power device maker Transphorm with a third major acquisition reportedly in the works, the latest big moves by Japan’s largest integrated semiconductor device maker.

These and previous acquisitions are key to the company’s drive to build a large, profitable and globally competitive semiconductor business spanning automotive, industrial, infrastructure, Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, data center and space and defense applications.

In combination with the rationalization of existing operations, the moves to date have been profitable. Since 2016, the company’s consolidated sales have increased by 2.3 times to 1.5 trillion yen (US$9.8 billion) while operating profit margin has risen from 11.0% to 26.6%.

Renesas is a world leader in microcontrollers for the auto industry and also possesses embedded processing, analog, power management, radio frequency, sensor, system-on-chip (SOC) and other semiconductor technologies.

It has its own front-end wafer fabrication capacity in Japan, and some in Florida, but also outsources production to Taiwan’s TSMC and Global Foundries. Its back-end assembly, packaging and test operations are located in Japan, China and Malaysia.

On January 11, Renesas announced the purchase of 100% of Transphorm, an American producer of gallium nitride (GaN) power semiconductor devices with more than 1,000 related patents. The acquisition is likely to be completed in the second half of 2024.

GaN is expected to be the next widely used power semiconductor material after silicon carbide (SiC). Both have applications in electric vehicles (EVs), data centers, renewable energy and