Renesas Technology Continues to Lead the Embedded Microcontroller Market and Now Aims to Increase its Global Market Share to 30 Percent

Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley 2008

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Renesas Technology America Inc. today announced that Renesas Technology, a leading supplier of microcontrollers (MCUs), continues to dominate the worldwide MCU market, according to the latest market study* published by Gartner, Inc. In the study, Renesas was ranked as the world’s No. 1 MCU supplier based on its revenue in 2007, with 21 percent market share with reported revenue of 2.9 billion dollars. In the Americas market, Renesas achieved growth of 11 percent for 2007 based on revenue.

Renesas has gained its leadership position by providing comprehensive solutions for a wide range of applications, especially those in the automotive, consumer, communication and industrial fields. The company’s comprehensive portfolio of MCUs for embedded-systems extends from low-power 8- and 16-bit MCUs all the way to high-performance 32-bit devices. Renesas is also a technology leader in embedded flash memory. Last year, the company became the first in the industry to successfully ship a 90-nm-based MCU to market.

Renesas aims to increase its share in global markets further and has taken many steps to do so, such as reinforcing its management structure, developing a next-generation MCU architecture, investing in additional chip-making capacity, and introducing true global ecosystems for design engineers.

Renesas has recently appointed Yasushi Akao as board director and general manager of the MCU business group at Renesas Technology Corp. Mr. Akao has years of intensive engineering and marketing background in the semiconductor business and will run the global operations of Renesas’ MCU group.

“Ever since the formation of Renesas, our focus has always been on delivering powerful, highly integrated and quality system solutions to customers. We think the latest market share attests to the success of our accomplishments,” said Ali Sebt, executive vice president of Renesas Technology America, Inc., who heads Renesas’ US MCU operations. “As our next goal, we are aiming to increase our share to 30 percent globally by expanding our MCU business in markets outside of Japan. One of the strategic steps Renesas has taken is the development of a next-generation CISC MCU architecture that will offer a higher processing capability. The new ‘RX’ architecture is designed to meet the requirements of networking, consumer and industrial applications. We’re focusing on enhancing the customer base in overseas by hosting a developer’s conference in the US in October, building on the successes of similar events in Japan and China.”

The new RX MCU family, which will be available in Q2 CY2009, will address the needs for both 16 and 32-bit markets by delivering high throughput, small code sizes and low power consumption. The new family is expected to achieve a 30-percent reduction in code sizes, offer operating speeds up to 200MHz, and consume only 200µA/MHz. The RX-family devices are designed to preserve full compatibility with existing M16C, R32C, H8S and H8SX products in peripheral sets, code and tools. Thus, customers will be able to upgrade to higher-performance devices with little or no additional system development expense.

Additionally, Renesas is accelerating the creation of advanced technology that addresses key requirements of high-end and niche application segments. This includes the development of multi-core systems for equipment that requires high performance, and MCUs with security capabilities that meet high-priority requirements in the growing eCommerce market and others.

To satisfy the rising demand for MCUs, Renesas is also investing 4 billion yen to expand its Beijing back-end fab, Renesas Semiconductor (Beijing) Co., Ltd. The larger facility will be capable of manufacturing 100-million units per month by fiscal 2012, double its current 50-million unit level. When it reaches that production output, it will become the world’s highest-volume MCU plant for back-end manufacturing.

As part of the global effort to expand the MCU business, Renesas also introduced two grass-root programs in 2007. The Alliance Program is a true global partnership program designed to provide engineers with a complete suite of development resources through Renesas’ global network of partners. The program has now over 300 partners worldwide and continues to expand. Renesas University, on the other hand, is an expansion of an ongoing worldwide support effort intended to improve the educational resources available to engineering professors and students through a learning-aid program.

About Renesas Technology Corp.

Renesas Technology Corp. is one of the world's leading semiconductor system solutions providers for mobile, automotive and PC/AV (Audio Visual) markets and the world's No.1 supplier of microcontrollers. It is also a leading provider of LCD Driver ICs, Smart Card microcontrollers, RF-ICs, High Power Amplifiers, Mixed Signal ICs, System-on-Chip (SoC), System-in-Package (SiP) and more. Established in 2003 as a joint venture between Hitachi, Ltd. (TOKYO:6501), (NYSE:HIT) and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (TOKYO:6503), Renesas Technology achieved consolidated revenue of 953 billion JPY in FY2006 (end of March 2007). Renesas Technology is based in Tokyo, Japan and has a global network of manufacturing, design and sales operations in around 20 countries with about 26,500 employees worldwide. For further information, please visit http://www.renesas.com

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