Rumor mill: Renesas Mobile may be dumped by parent

Japanese chip company Renesas Mobile is reportedly being eyed for sale by its parent Renesas Electronics.

The possible sale of Renesas Mobile would be part of a previously reported reorganization of the beleaguered parent company, which is also reportedly planning to shutter at least half of its manufacturing plants in Japan over the next one to three years, said EE Times, citing a report from Asahi Shimbun. Renesas also is said to be selling its Yamagata system--chip fab--which manufactures chips for flat-panel TVs, cameras and digital products--to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.

Renesas has posted losses since being formed through the 2010 merger of the chipmaking interests of NEC and Renesas Technology, said EE Times.

According to the article, Renesas Mobile employs about 1,800 people.

Despite rumors that Renesas Mobile may be sold off, the company and its parent continue with business as usual. On June 12, Renesas and Renesas Mobile announced they have licensed the ARM Cortex-A7 MPCore and ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore processors. "Deployed in ARM's big.LITTLE configuration, the processors will enable Renesas Mobile to create a new generation of turbo-charged applications processors, communications processors and LTE/HSPA+ multi-mode smartphone platforms with ultra-high performance and extended battery life," said the companies.

"The market demands ever increasing performance in low power devices and Renesas Mobile is well placed to deliver world-beating application processors and communications processors. Our skills lie in systems design and the integration and optimization of highly complex, LTE multi-mode cellular system-on-chips," said Shinichi Yoshioka, senior executive vice president and COO at Renesas Mobile.

For more:
- see this EE Times article
- see this Renesas release

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