by Anton Shilov
12/26/2002 | 07:11 PM
Mitsubishi Electric and Hitachi Semiconductor today officially signed a deal to merge their semiconductor business operations and form the new company called Renesas Technology. Keeping in mind the revenues of semiconductor divisions of both companies in 2002, the new start-up is likely to become the third largest semiconductor supplier on the planet.
According to the official statement, Hitachi owns 55% of the joint venture, while 45% belong to Mitsubishi Electric. Currently the partners try to arrange their future workforces. Obviously, big mergers are made also in order to cut operational expenses, thus, expect massive layoffs in the newly formed start-up.<%BANNER[article]%>
Renesas Technology will start to operate on the 1st of April 2003 and will be headed by Mr. Katsumi Suizu, group vice president of semiconductor at Mitsubishi Electric. Both companies will try to consolidate their businesses in Europe, Asia and the USA during the first half of the year to form Renesas Device Sales that will deal strictly with selling the products to customers. Renesas Technology will develop, design and manufacture semiconductor components at Mitsubishi and Hitachi facilities.