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TAP TIMES -33- APRIL 2022
Powerful earthquake affects
Renesas plants in Japan
Fukushima, Japan — A powerful 7.4
Richter-magnitude earthquake struck
the coast of this eastern prefecture
at 11:36 p.m. local time on March 16,
causing widespread damage and loss
of lives.
CNN reported at least four people died,
over 100 were injured and power was cut A 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck Japan’s Fukushima Province
to millions of homes. Eleven years ago, on March 16. (Earthpress)
this region was struck by a quake and
tsunami that resulted in a nuclear power The company said no employees were
plant meltdown. injured in any of the facilities. In a late
March update, Renesas said the Naka
Renesas factories in the area factory had reached half of its production
Automotive semiconductor maker Renesas capacity by March 23.
operates three facilities close to the epi-
center. The plants in Naka, Takasaki and Damage to work in process
Yonezawa were all affected by the quake The Takasaki plant also returned to full
and immediately shut-down, the company production by March 23, with some dam-
reported. age to work in process at the time of the
quake. The Yonezawa factory likewise has
Naka and Takasaki, however, began to returned to full production.
resume operation the next day. Produc-
tion initially resumed for some test lines at The company supplies semiconductors, in-
Yonezawa the next day and production cluding microcontrollers, logic and memory
resumed two days later. to Ford and GM. renesas.com
Longer-lasting batteries (from 32) LTE/5G wireless market will
SK Innovation, a global energy and pet- reach $8.3B by 2026 – IDC
rochemical company, is funding additional
research of the electrolyte material as NEEDHAM, Mass. — New research
part of its ongoing collaboration with the from International Data Corporation
Institute to build next-generation solid- (IDC) forecasts worldwide private
state batteries that are safer and more LTE/5G wireless infrastructure reve-
energy dense than conventional LI-ion nues will reach $8.3 billion by 2026,
batteries. a significant increase from revenues
of $1.7 billion in 2021.
SK recently announced construction of a
new EV battery plant in Commerce, Geor- The market is expected to achieve a
gia, expected to produce an annual vol- five-year compound annual growth rate
ume of lithium-ion batteries equal to 21.5 (CAGR) of 35.7% over the 2022-2026
Gigawatt-hours by 2023. gatech.edu forecast period. idc.com
