Renesas Electronics is expanding its India footprint, with the major crossing 1,000 employees in the country and planning new operations in Pune as it looks to deepen its work in automotive, industrial, and physical AI applications.
The company has a presence in Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Noida, with a Pune office set to open later this year, according to Malini Narayanamoorthi, President of Renesas Electronics India and Vice President, Renesas. Pune is being positioned as a strategic location for the company’s automotive business.
“We’ll do a fair bit of our solutions and system development for automotive from Pune,” Narayanamoorthi added.
The company addresses sectors such as automotive, industrial and IoT. Of late, EV two-wheelers and four-wheelers are emerging as a key area for India-led innovation.
Narayanamoorthi argued that developing solutions locally would be important to keep innovation cost-efficient for the Indian market.
One area of focus for Renesas is integrating multiple functions into a single microcontroller. For instance, functions such as motor control, DC-DC conversion, and OVC can be combined and optimised on one chip, reducing the number of components required.
“In a motorbike, five different functions can be combined into one microcontroller and optimised. Such innovation can only happen in India. This also means less weight, more efficiency, and a lower cost. This application is a system solution we’ve built by combining the functions of a two-wheeler and modularizing it. You can put even five applications into one chip, shrinking the number of chips required,” she said.
While automotive has traditionally been a major focus for Renesas, the company is also applying its automotive design and development expertise to industrial applications and physical AI.
Moreover, India is also playing a role in the development of the company’s advanced chips. A 3nm chip was largely developed at Renesas’ Noida site, while the system development was carried out from Bengaluru.
“We’ve taped out the chip, and our customers are now sampling this chip,” she noted.
The chip is designed to consolidate several functions associated with software-defined vehicles, including entertainment, gateways and control, into a single chip.
Renesas is also expanding its manufacturing presence in India through CG Semi, with its mini OSAT facility in Sanand, Gujarat, now in commercial production. The facility has a capacity of about 300 million units annually, while the main facility under construction is expected to reach 4 billion units a year. The company expects to move to the main facility next year, according to Narayanamoorthi.