Renesas restarts shuttered plant to meet power chip demand

TOKYO/KOFU, Japan -- Renesas Electronics officially restarted a plant near Mt. Fuji that had been dormant for over nine years on Thursday, racing to meet surging demand for power semiconductors used in electric vehicles and data centers.

The Kofu factory in Yamanashi prefecture produced mainly semiconductors for personal computers until it was shuttered in October 2014. Now the facility is expected to double Renesas' output of power semiconductors starting next year.