»We can now cover all major connectivity standards.«

Further acquisitions

To what extent is it a problem for Renesas that the license agreement between Dialog and Apple is now expiring?

The license expiring is not a significant problem because the related sales currently are only in the single-digit millions. What matters much more is this point: Even though Dialog has lost the PMIC tied to the apps processor business, it has at the same time acquired a lot of know-how, for example, for the battery charging, and power management of displays thanks to its close cooperation with several mobile phone manufacturers. And it was possible to keep this know-how within the company, i.e., the development team at Dialog is now part of Renesas. For Renesas, the acquisition of Dialog was driven primarily by an appreciation of the values of its intellectual capital, we wanted to bring that into the Renesas fold. We were less interested in the immediate accretion to sales that the acquisition would yield.

Are there any components at Dialog that don't fit with Renesas at all?

Certainly not on the power side. There may be a few niche products that don't suit us in the long term, but that only really affects small product groups, if at all.

Renesas recently acquired Celeno, another Wi-Fi specialist, why?

Celeno is predominantly about Wi-Fi 6 and 6 Edge, both technologies that are important for IoT and the industrial segment. In addition, Celeno also offers expertise on the access point and client side. Dialog, on the other hand, was largely focused on Wi-Fi 4, which is 2.4 GHz, and with Celeno we now also cover Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, plus an integrated variant with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth for the client side. With the acquisition of Celeno, we can now cover the entire spectrum and fill any gaps that still exist.

And in the cellular area, Renesas is focusing on partnerships. Earlier this year, we extended our collaboration with Sequans Communications beyond the existing 4G/5G licensing agreements. We are working with Sequans to also offer connectivity via narrow-band IoT and Cat M.

I think this will allow Renesas to play as a true IoT provider, because the gaps Renesas previously had on the connectivity side are now finally closed.

Renesas has so far been a niche player in the field of power semiconductors...

While it is true that we do not have the catalog portfolio of several of the largest companies in the power management space, especially those focused on industrial and automotive areas, we continue to expand our portfolio.

I am convinced that Renesas will play a much more important role in the POL as well as IGBT area in the next few years. You can expect more focus in this area. I can't give details at this time, but just this: many companies are talking about SiC-based technologies for high-voltage applications, and here Renesas is rather unknown. Have we recognized that? No question about it. We will work to address this area.

GaN is an area of importance for IIBU for industrial applications. Here we are working with Efficient Power Conversion to develop solutions for the industrial market. In addition, we are also working with GaN Systems as a partner.

Last year, MCUs and analog were particularly affected by supply bottlenecks, what do you expect this year?

2022 will be at least as difficult as 2021 in terms of the supply situation, but that also means that this year will be a good year for the semiconductor industry with solid growth. I expect microcontrollers to remain in short supply in the IoT and industrial segments, and the same applies to analog components flowing into the industrial and infrastructure sectors; in all areas, demand is well above supply. Nevertheless, we will certainly not achieve the growth rates of last year, but a healthy growth will definitely be achieved.

And what do you expect for IIBU this year?

We expect 2022 to be a very strong year for IIBU, in all three segments. There is brisk demand in the industrial market, the infrastructure segment remains strong, and there are shifts in the IoT segment, but without affecting overall growth. This is because even though the demand for notebooks/laptops in the consumer sector is declining it is more than offset from the currently increasing demand in the enterprise sector due to the switch from Windows 10 to Windows 11 as well as increased demand in the gaming area. There are other areas, such as data center, which will be characterized by significantly higher demand.

1. »We can now cover all major connectivity standards.«
2. Further acquisitions