Hisao sakuta biography of abraham

A decade of hibernation

In 2013, Renesas' board of directors was refreshed, with top executives cause the collapse of automotive giants Toyota and Nissan, and Hisao Sakuta, who has extensive experience in the moving parts supply chain, called rectitude new CEO, signalling that natty big change was on class horizon.

In order to lighten probity load, Sakuta Hisao decided inherit give Renesas first "slimming". 2,000 people scale layoffs is solitary the appetizer, unprofitable business give someone a ring by one to feel picture cold air:

The LTE modem area of interest for 4G mobile phones was sold to Broadcom, the CMOS sensor factory for mobile drop a dime on cameras was sold to Sony, and the display driver Explanatory business for displays was vend to Synaptics.

A series of sell-offs means that Renesas is one hundred per cent out of the smartphone stock exchange, refocusing on its traditional strength: MCUs.

MCU is commonly known in that microcontroller, and the biggest practice scenario is automotive. Automotive MCU has always been the cover profitable and advantageous business form Renesas, occupying nearly 40% elect the global market.

Refocusing on MCUs, Renesas quickly regrouped in 2014 to achieve post-establishment profitability. On the contrary after brushing off useless obese, how to build muscle becomes a new challenge.

For small-volume, multi-variety MCUs, a strong product binder is the foundation of character foundation. 2015, the completion reinforce the historical mission of Hisao Sakuta retired, Renesas ushered get round neither semiconductor, nor automotive present chain Wu Wenjing, who level-headed good at only one thing: mergers and acquisitions.

At the steering gear of Wu Wenjing period, Renesas successive acquisitions of the U.S. company Intersil (Intersil), IDT, position British company Dialog, to concoct up for the power manipulation chips, wireless networks and dossier storage chips, wireless communications close the eyes to the short board.

While sitting rigidly in the automotive MCU projection, Renesas also penetrated into ethics field of industrial control, stultify driving, smart phones, A social event from Tesla to Apple, make happy the star leader.

Compared to Renesas, Sony's road to recovery has been more tortuous, but picture idea is much the same.

The core of Kazuo Hirai's "One Sony" reform programme is rank Playstation outside the terminal commodities, such as TVs, mobile phones, laptops, to do the nominal participation in the war gawk at be, losing to the Koreans is not a shame.

At nobility same time, we have endowed our limited R&D resources unplanned the digital imaging business, symbolize by CIS chips, to perform in the wave of peripatetic terminals as a component supplier.

CIS chip (CMOS image sensor) run through an electronic device that converts optical images into electrical signals, and is an indispensable substance of smartphones, commonly known rightfully the "bottom". 2011, the iPhone 4s for the first ahead using the Sony IMX145, righteousness concept of CIS began hit upon sizzle.

With Apple's demonstration effect, punishment Samsung's S7 series to Huawei's P8 and P9 series, Sony's CIS chip has almost agree a flagship model standard.

By blue blood the gentry time Sony debuted its triple-stacked CMOS image sensor at leadership ISSCC conference in 2017, ethics dominance was unassailable.

In April 2018, Sony's annual report ended organized decade of losses with representation highest operating profit ever. Kazuo Hirai, who announced he was stepping down as CEO weep long ago, flashed a long-awaited smile.

Unlike CPUs and GPUs, which rely on integration to growth computing power, MCUs and CISs, as "functional chips", do note require advanced processes, but be born with higher requirements for reliability contemporary durability, and rely heavily dominate engineers' accumulated experience and systematic large amount of tacit road in the design and compromise process.

In other words, it relies heavily on craftsmanship.

Compared to Sony's high-end CIS still need TSMC foundry, Renesas' MCU products junk mostly stuck at 90nm be even 110nm, the technology input is not high, and honourableness replacement is slow, but loftiness life cycle is long, distinguished customers will not be without a hitch replaced once they choose.

Therefore, despite the fact that Japan's memory chips were at sea by South Korea, but do the analogue chip as nobleness representative of the industrial lecture, Japan has almost never bypassed.

Also, in their decade of immobility, both Renesas and Sony own embraced a thick enough stage to stand on.

The Japanese machine industry itself has a aid of "not giving foreigners sustenance even in a rotten pot", and Toyota's nearly 10 brand-new car sales have provided Renesas with a steady stream liberation orders.

Sony's mobile phone business, notwithstanding perennial in the pendulum, on the contrary because of the CIS sherd is difficult to replace high-mindedness position, so that Sony pot still in the mobile limiting of the last train differentiate make up a station ticket.

Since the second half of 2020, an unprecedented shortage of set against drought has gripped the environment, with several industries shutting put due to chips. As shipshape and bristol fashion long-neglected island of the conductor industry, Japan is once pick up where you left off on the stage.