Renesas Electronics Strengthens its SoC Business That Supports the Cloud-Computing Era

Since Renesas Electronics Corporation was formed on April 1, 2010 through a merger between NEC Electronics Corporation and Renesas Technology Corp., the company has considered ways to generate maximum synergies for its SoC business, both in the business direction and in its product portfolio. Leveraging the company’s advanced process technology and intellectual property (IP), solid design implementation capabilities, and a long-term supply capacity as competitive advantages, Renesas Electronics will be focusing on social infrastructure business that is expected to expand to various fields. In particular, Renesas Electronics’ 1st SoC Business Unit will concentrate its business primarily on the network and industrial infrastructures that support the cloud computing society, a society that provides various service applications through the internet via numerous devices including PCs, smartphones and mobile handsets. Renesas Electronics expects the network and industrial infrastructures to grow and will be able to provide robust products for these markets to further expand its global top-market shares based on existing strengths. By concentrating resources into the focused areas, Renesas Electronics aims to increase the annual sales of the SoC business by an average of approximately 5 to 7 percent per year from FY2010 to FY 2012, thereby expanding market shares in each focused area.

(1) SoC solutions for network infrastructure: Memory devices for networking equipment and SoCs for universal serial bus (USB) devices

Currently boasting the world’s top market shares, Renesas Electronics will focus on memory devices for networking equipment and SoCs for USB devices and aims to further expand its share in these markets.

As cloud computing progresses, there is a growing demand for increased capacity, faster speeds and lower power consumption within network equipment including switches and routers. As a result of the merger, Renesas Electronics is now the only semiconductor memory manufacturer that can independently supply all key memory devices for network equipment including quad data rate/double data rate (QDR/DDR) SRAM, LLDRAM (low latency dynamic random access memory) and TCAM (ternary content addressable memory). In addition to offering the world’s #1 product lineups, Renesas Electronics will also expand its SoC solution offerings that integrate memory devices and peripheral SoCs. The company also plans to launch its new QDR SDRAM (synchronous DRAM) products in 2011, which will be developed through the integration of the respective technologies from the two former companies. As a result of these measures, Renesas Electronics aims to expand its market share of memory devices for network equipment from the current 40 percent to 60 percent in FY2012.

In addition, the company expects the market of USB, an interface standard used in a wide range of electronic devices to transfer large volumes of data, to further expand. Leveraging the company’s technological expertise as the world’s first company to release a USB 3.0-compliant host controller chip, the company plans to launch hub controllers and other USB 3.0-compliant SoCs for peripheral devices starting in 2011 and aims to increase its global market share of USB SoCs from the current top 15 percent to 30 percent in FY2012.

(2) SoC solutions for industrial infrastructure: SoCs for industrial applications and SoCs for smart grid

As factory automation progresses, Ethernet has been increasingly adopted to facilitate network communication between industrial applications. Renesas Electronics plans to release new Ethernet physical layers (PHYs) for industrial applications that offer real-time processing and high reliability for industrial automation products and subsequently is scheduled to start sample shipments of SoCs that incorporate these new PHYs in November 2010. Renesas Electronics expects to expand global market share of its SoCs for industrial devices from the current top 25 percent to 30 percent in FY2012.

In addition, smart grid (a next-generation power-grid system) that promotes energy efficiency has been gaining popularity, and many countries worldwide are expected to adopt this system. Renesas Electronics addresses market demand by providing SoCs with a wide range of built-in communication interfaces including Ethernet, ZigBee® and power line communication (PLC), together with MCUs with power measuring features, and aims to expand into the smart grid market that has a high future-growth potential.