Renasas announces expanded chip venture

Japan-based semiconductor maker Renesas Technology Corp said it will spend US$92 million to triple its chipmaking capacity in China and raise its mainland market share from 2% to 5%. The company said it aimed to increase current sales of US$739 million to US$2.6 billion by 2007. The world's No. 3 chipmaker was formed last year when Hitachi Ltd and Mitsubishi Electric Corp merged semiconductor units. It now makes 20 million chips a month in China for a 2% share of the mainland's US$40 billion market. Renesas has plants in Beijing and Jiangsu, where it will focus on increasing production of microcontroller chips which coordinate processor, memory and other functions.