Japan volcano eruption affects Renesas, Sony, Mitsubishi Electric and other major manufacturers

According to Japan's TBS TV station, the Japan Meteorological Agency announced that at 11:43 am on October 20, Mount Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan erupted, with a smoke column as high as 3,500 meters and volcanic ash falling on nearby villages.

According to reports, after the eruption of Mount Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture, a large amount of pyroclastic flow gushed out from the crater, with the farthest flow reaching 1,300 meters from the crater. In addition, a large amount of volcanic rocks were ejected, with the farthest rolling down 900 meters from the crater. About an hour later, Mount Aso had a second eruption, with the height of the smoke column about 1,600 meters.

An employee of the Takamori Town government, located about 8 kilometers south of Mount Aso, said that volcanic ash began to fall gradually after noon. In addition, an employee of Minami Aso Village, which is also near the crater, said that "the height of the smoke column from this eruption is the highest in the past three or four years."

Kumamoto Prefecture is not a large prefecture in Japan, but the island of Kyushu where it is located has many semiconductor manufacturing plants and is also known as Japan's "Silicon Island." The eruption of Kumamoto volcano has caused the industry to worry about whether it will have a negative impact on local Japanese semiconductor companies.

It is understood that there are many semiconductor manufacturing factories in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan.

The production line at Sony's Kumamoto Technology Center uses 300mm wafers, and the factory is the main production base for Sony's CMOS image sensors.

The production line at Renesas Electronics' manufacturing plant in Kumamoto Prefecture mainly uses 8-inch wafers. The plant is the main production base for Renesas Electronics' microcontrollers.

Mitsubishi Electric's Kumamoto plant is the company's main base for front-end manufacturing of power semiconductor components and is also primarily responsible for the production of IGBT modules.

This year, TSMC and Sony Group have decided to jointly build a new semiconductor factory in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. Sony will consider making a small investment and becoming a major customer of the new factory. This will be TSMC's first foundry in Japan, with a total investment of 800 billion yen. It is expected that the Japanese government will provide half of the subsidy. The semiconductor factory will use TSMC's cutting-edge technology to start the production of computing semiconductors (logic semiconductors) that are indispensable for automobiles and industrial robots by 2024.

In addition, major Japanese automobile manufacturers such as Toyota, Honda, and Nissan also have factories in Kumamoto.

Foreign experts said that if a volcano erupts in Japan, semiconductors may suffer a catastrophe. Data shows that there are many Japanese semiconductor manufacturers, and well-known semiconductor manufacturers such as Toshiba, NEC, Renesas, and Sony have set up factories in Japan. In terms of chip equipment and materials, they provide more than 50% of important semiconductor materials and more than 40% of semiconductor manufacturing equipment to the world. For example, Shin-Etsu Chemical, as the world's largest supplier of silicone, a Japanese semiconductor company, has accounted for more than 30% of the world's silicon chip supply, comparable to the "TSMC" and "Intel" in the materials industry.