The company was originally founded in 2002 as Renesas Technology, created by merging the semiconductor divisions of Hitachi and Mitsubishi. In 2010 NEC Electronics merged with Renesas Technology to form today's Renesas Electronics.
Renesas is one of the world's ten largest semiconductor suppliers, with high market share in mobile communications, automotive electronics and PC/AV, and also operating in analog and mixed-signal ICs, memory devices and SoC. In 2022 it became the world's third largest automotive semiconductor company and the largest microcontroller supplier.
Its business covers the development, design, manufacture, sale and service of system LSI including microcontrollers and logic, discrete semiconductor components, and memories such as SRAM. Product families include:
- RL78 MCU series: combines the core features of the NEC 78K0R with many peripherals of the traditional Renesas R8C microcontrollers; core variants S1, S2 and S3 offer new low-power modes.
- RX MCU series: a family of 32-bit microcontrollers targeting metering, motor control, human machine interfaces, networking and industrial automation.
- RA MCU series: 32-bit microcontrollers with Arm Cortex cores, featuring stronger embedded security, high performance, ultra-low-power CoreMark operation, a complete partner ecosystem and flexible software packages.
- RZ Arm-based 32-bit and 64-bit series: high-end microprocessors designed for high-resolution human machine interfaces, embedded vision, real-time control and industrial Ethernet connectivity, supporting many protocols.
In terms of scale, the group employs 26,000 people across 43 companies in 20 countries, of which 20 are in Japan and 24 outside Japan. Annual sales for FY2006 (ending March 2007) were ¥952.6 billion (approximately USD 8.3 billion).
Renesas has also strengthened its technology and product lines through acquisitions: Intersil (US) filled gaps in power management; IDT added RF, high-performance timing and storage interface technologies; Dialog brought low-power wireless connectivity and power management; and Steradian, a fabless supplier of 4D imaging radar solutions, expanded its influence in the radar market.
