Japanese manufacturers are being affected by power blackouts following last week’s earthquake seriously damaged nuclear power plants.
All companies recognise the priority is to provide essential services and to support those people directly affected by the earthquake and tsunami.
This means the co-ordinated power cuts by the national electricity company are affecting manufacturers as they assess the damage to productiom facilities in the north east of the country.
Renesas Electronics said yesterday that seven factories out of a total of 22 have still “temporarily shut their production”.
According to the company, the Renesas Yamagata Semiconductor front-end production line has not been damaged.
However attempts to get it restarted have been temporarily put on hold “in response to the blackout measure”, said the company.
Renesas said the Tsugaru fab is also without electricity.
It said it would assess conditions in the cleanroom of the Naka factory once electricity has been restored.
Renesas said it would begin start-up procesdures of affected plants once electricity blackouts have ended.
The worry is that the electriocty blackouts, which are necessary at this time, will prolong the startup procedures for damaged fabs.
A concern is Texas Instruments’ Miho fab which has been closed by the earthquake.
TI already estimates that it could be mid-July before the fab, which produced about 10% of TI's output, is back to full production.
“But this schedule could be delayed if the region's power grid is unstable or if further complications prevent the re-start of equipment,” said TI.
Equipment at TI's fab in Aizu-wakamatsu, about 150 miles north of Tokyo, is already being re-started and full production is estimated by mid-April.
But this will require a stable power supply.
Factiories south of Tokyo have not been affected by the quake or power blackouts.
TI said its third fab in Hiji, about 500 miles south of Tokyo, was undamaged and is currently running at normal capacity.
Omron, which has its major production facilities located outside the disaster area, said direct effects of the disaster on production will be minor.
“However there are a large number of Omron suppliers in the disaster area and we are working to assess the situation,” said Omron.
See: Japanese component shortages expected in Q2, says report.