Renesas to sell 10 fabs and retire over 10 per cent of its workforce

CHIPMAKER Renesas will offload 10 of its 19 fabs and introduce an early retirement plan to cut costs.

Renesas has spent the last two quarters desperately trying to avoid going the way of fellow Japanese chipmaker Elpida, and earlier today Renesas president Yasushi Akao laid out the firm's plans to avoid bankruptcy. Akao talked of moving more production overseas, selling 10 fabs in Japan and introducing an early retirement programme to cut its workforce.

According to Akao the company wants to remain a big player in the hugely competitive and high volume automotive chip market. He also talked about Renesas keeping its analog and power controller business while shrinking its system-on-chip unit.

Akao's presentation suggested there will be more deals like the one signed with TSMC to take over 40nm chip production. The firm won't get out of the foundry business altogether, but by selling 10 fabs it is inching towards becoming yet another fabless chip design house.

Renesas will start an early retirement programme with the application period lasting for a week beginning 18 September. The firm said it would not set an upper limit on the number of applications but expects that over five thousand employees will apply, close to 12 per cent of its workforce. µ