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[Updates] Fujitsu Semiconductor on March 17th announced that it has begun recovery efforts at its two facilities in Fukushima, including the site responsible for the production of flash memory and flash micro-controllers. However, the company said that it is unknown when it can start recovery efforts at its Iwate site.

Hitachi Group Thursday (March 17) confirmed that its main production facilities in Ibaraki prefecture suffered damage during the earthquake, including cracks in walls, broken glass and fallen ceilings, roofs and walls. Damaged facilities include Hitachi Displays Ltd. in Chiba prefecture, as well as two automotive systems plants, an appliance factory and an information and control systems production facility, among others, Hitachi said. Power to the facilities is gradually being restored, Hitachi said. Currently Hitachi has no timetable for the recovery of utilities such as water and gas, but the company said it would work toward resuming operations as quickly as possible, while keeping the safety of employees its first priority. Hitachi said production resumed Thursday at Hitachi Appliances Inc.'s plant in Tochigi-shi, Tochigi prefecture, which produces air conditioners and refrigerators, though the company expects interruptions due to rolling blackouts. Regular operations also resumed Thursday at Hitachi's main production sites in Kanagawa prefecture, which produce IT and telecommunications equipment. Full production also resumed Thursday of dry cell batteries at Hitachi Maxell Ltd.'s plant in Ibaraki shi, Osaka, the company said. 
According to a report by Taiwan-based news outlet Want ChinaTimes.com, the disaster may have tangential impact of Hitachi’s chemical production. Taiwan's Vice Economics Minister Huang Chung-qiu said March 13 that production of two vital raw materials—ACFs (anisotropic conductive adhesive) used in panel module driver ICs and silicon wafers needed for the manufacture of semiconductors have been affected. Huang said the the primary producer of ACF is Hitachi Chemical, which accounts for more than 50 percent of the total global production.

On Thursday (March 17), Maxim Integrated Products Inc. reported that its partner facility, Seiko Epson, incurred no structural damage from the quake, but said that production has been affected by regional power outages. The Seiko Epson, located in Sakata, Japan, provided about 15 percent of Maxim's wafer starts last quarter. Maxim said all the products it has manufactured at Seiko Epson can be made elsewhere, provided there is sufficient capacity available. The company said it has already begun shifting production to its internal fabs and other foundries.

U.S.-based passives giant Molex Inc. reported its employees in Japan were safe and that none of its three facilities were damaged in the massive earthquake. Molex has major operations in Shizouka, Kagoshima and Yamato City, none of which are in the northeastern part of the country that was hardest hit by the earthquake and tsunami. ‘’With the situation also evolving rapidly in regard to transportation and infrastructure issues, we do not yet know what the effect will be on Molex’s business. As we work to assess how this will affect Molex, our business continuity teams are working to ensure we continue to supply customers,” said Martin Slark, vice chairman and CEO, in a statement.

On Semiconductor Corp. Wednesday (March 16) updated the status of its production facilities in northeastern Japan, saying its fabs in Aizu and Gunma remain shut down until infrastructure services are restored. On Semi originally reported power loss and limited physical damage to its 6-inch wafer fab in Aizu, but due to infrastructure disruption the Aizu fab remains temporarily shut down, the company said Wednesday. The company said its fab in Niigata, recently acquired along with Sanyo Semiconductor, also reported limited physical damage but no power loss, and resumed production on March 12. Another former Sanyo fab in Gifu sustained limited damage and was taken off line at least temporarily, but on Wednesday the company reported that the Gifu fab's production lines were not damaged and are up and running. On Semi's Gunma fab, leased from Sanyo Electric, reported power loss, but limited power and communications have been restored as of Wednesday. The company said it is still assessing the impact of the earthquake to production at the Gunma fab. Two of On Semi's back-end packaging facilities were also damaged, but resumed production March 13, according to the company. On Semi confirmed Wednesday that there were no on-site injuries suffered by any of its 6,000 employees in Japan in the disaster.

Panasonic Corp., which maintains a number of production facilities in Japan, including two logic fabs in central Japan according to Objective Analysis, issued a statement to say that some minor injuries to employees were reported by companies in its group, though the listed facilities did not include its wafer fabs in the Central Japan locations of Arai and Uozu. The company said it was suspending manufacturing operations in facilities affected by the earthquake but did not specify whether that included the wafer fabs. Production has been suspended at Panasonic's two factories in Fukushima, which produce audio products and digital cameras, and one in Sendai producing camera lenses, the company said. Due to aftershocks, one has not been able to enter those plants, Panasonic said. The company said it is cooperating with  Tokyo Electric and Tohoku Electric Power as their top priority for other sites. Panasonic said it has received a few reports of injuries sustained by employees and has yet to confirm safety of all of its employees.

Qualcomm Inc. said it does not ''foresee any significant impact in our ability to supply product to our customers due to the events in Japan. With regard to the availability of bismaleimide triazine (BT) resin, Qualcomm uses either BT-based or epoxy-based laminate materials in our chipset packages.  To account for any potential disruption in  BT supply, we believe our use of buffer stock and adjustments to our near term material mix will enable us to mitigate potential supply disruptions to our customer base.''  

Five wafer fabs and two back-end packaging facilities owned by Renesas Electronics Corp. are closed through at least Tuesday (March 15). Renesas Tuesday confirmed that the earthquake caused structural damage to five of the seven facilities. Partial damage has been confirmed at the company's Tsugaru fab in Aomori prefecture, Takasaki fab in Gunma prefecture, Kofu fab in Yamanashi prefecture and its Yonezawa back-end test and assembly facility in Yamagata prefecture. A "defect" has been identified at Renesas' Naka fab in Ibaraki prefecture and the company is assessing the extent of the damage, Renesas said. No structural or equipment damage has been confirmed at the Renesas Tsuruoka fab in Yamagata prefecture or at the Renesas High Components Inc. back-end test and assembly facility in Tsuruta-cho, Aomori prefecture, Renesas said. Renesas is currently assessing the status of the production equipment at the Tsugaru and Naka fabs, though both remained without power at the time of the company's last update. Partial damage has been confirmed to the equipment at the Kofu fab and the Yonezawa back-end line. As of the last update, Renesas was preparing to restart production at five of the facilities once rolling power blackouts in the region have subsided. Renesas Wednesday (March 16) confirmed that the quake caused no damage to the structure or equipment at its Renesas Eastern Japan Semiconductor back-end line in Tokyo. The company restarted production at that facility around the rolling blakouts but only on products that were in progress at the time of the earthquake.  

Analog specialist Rohm Co. Ltd. of Japan was also impacted. ‘’Operations at the Oki Semiconductor Miyagi facilities and Rohm Tsukuba facilities have been stopped as of 11:00 a.m., March 13th because of infrastructure supply problems. The details are under investigation,’’ according to Rohm. Regarding Oki Semiconductor Miyagi as of March 16, water and electric power have yet to be restored. But a ''substitute production system'' is being formulated at the Rohm Kyoto main factory and Rohm Hamamatsu Co. Ltd. Efforts are being made to maintain a supply system that will fill customer orders for LSI chips. Regarding Rohm Tsukuba, the company said ''although the water main for factory operations is severed, a partial restart of operations is planned by the end of this week at the earliest. Rohm has devised a  ''substitute production system'' at Rohm Wako Devices Co. Ltd. and Rohm Apollo Devices Co. Ltd.

Flash memory vendor SanDisk Corp. said in a statement Friday that the epicenter of the quake was approximately 500 miles from Yokkaichi, the location of two fab joint ventures between SanDisk and Toshiba. Both fabs were down for a short period of time due to the earthquake , but were back up by Friday morning Pacific time, SanDisk said. There were no injuries to SanDisk employees based in Japan, SanDisk said.

Sony Corp. said operations at several of its facilities have been affected by quake, tsunami and widespread power outages. No significant injuries have been reported to employees working at any of these sites when the earthquake or tsunami occurred, Sony said. As of Monday, operations remain suspended at several sites, including Sony's Shiroishi Semiconductor Inc. fab in Miyagi prefecture as well as two Sony Energy Devices Corp. lithium ion battery production facilities in Fukushima prefecture and a surface mounting equipment production facility in Saitama prefecture.

Spansion Inc.'s final manufacturing sites are outside Japan and the impact to near term product supply ''is expected to be minimal,'' according to the NOR flash firm on Tuesday (March 15). However, one of Spansion's foundry fabs is Texas Instruments Inc.'s plant in  Aizu-wakamatsu, Japan, which was damaged by the quake. TI recently acquired that fab from Spansion. Spansion also has its own 200-mm fab in Austin, Texas. It also has a foundry deal with China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.(SMIC).  ''Spansion is actively engaged in working with its manufacturing partners in Japan to provide assistance and understand any future changes to production as they deal with the tragedy daily. In order to ensure stability of supply to customers, Spansion has the flexibility to move manufacturing of certain products to its Austin facility or other partners as the situation evolves,'' according to Spansion.

Texas Instruments Inc. initially reported that its Miho and Aizu sites and its Tokyo offices were affected by earthquake, but that employees at these sites were evacuated, and no injuries were reported. TI reported Monday (March 14) that its fab in Miho suffered substantial damage and would not return to full production until mid July at the earliest. TI said it would restart production in stages, beginning with several lines in May. The schedule could be delayed if the region’s power grid is unstable or if further complications prevent the re-start of equipment, TI said. The infrastructure systems at the Miho fab that deliver chemicals, gases, water and air were damaged, TI said, and repairs should be complete in about three weeks.  Impact to the fab's equipment is still unclear because of power outages, TI said. The building itself suffered little damage and remains structurally sound, TI said. The Miho fab produced about 10 percent of TI’s output as measured by revenue in 2010, of which more than a third was DLP, with the remainder being analog, TI said. The company said the fab in Aizu-wakamatsu was also damage, though equipment there is already being re-started and full production is estimated by mid April, assuming a stable power supply, the company said.  TI's third fab in Hiji, about 500 miles south of Tokyo, was undamaged and is currently running at normal capacity, TI said. 

Toshiba Corp. announced that it was shutting down power consumption of businesses not providing essential services at the request of Tokyo Electric Power Co. Toshiba said Tuesday (March 15) that production remains halted at its Iwate wafer fab in Kitakami City, in the Tohoku region strongly hit by the earthquake. Toshiba said there appears to be no significant damage to the building and that the company was evaluating the status of the production equipment. Toshiba said it was uncertain when production at the facility, which produces logic ICs for consumer and industrial applications, would restart. Also Tuesday, Toshiba said that its two 300-mm NAND flash memory fabs in Yokkaichi, Mie prefecture, are operating normally. The fabs briefly halted production when the earthquake hit, but soon restarted, Toshiba said. The company said it is still examining the fabs' production equipment for possible damage, but said that so far the effect on its Yokkaichi operations has been minimal. Toshiba also said Tuesday that its Ome factory in Tokyo, where the company makes laptop PCs, was closed Tuesday due to a planned power outage. A spokesperson for the company emphasized that most of Toshiba's laptops are built outside of Japan.
Semiconductor equipment, materials suppliers
Semiconductor equipment and materials suppliers, including JSR, SEH, TEL and others reported damage at various plants from the quake. SEH's silicon wafer plant was impacted. Advantest, DNS and others incurred minimal damage. As reported, the quake prompted supply chain worries in the industry.

"The quake has disrupted the supply of materials," said market research firm VLSI Research Inc., in a report. "Wafer supplier Shin-Etsu Semiconductor and SUMCO have halted production in some of their facilities due to damages and power outages. Some of these facilities are expected to stay off line as Japan grapples with the devastating aftermath of the earthquake. Wafer production in the affected region is around 20 percent of the world's total."

ATE vendor Advantest Corp. said it incurred minimal damage from the quake and that its major domestic facilities resumed operation Monday. No injuries or deaths of Advantest employees were reported and the company said it is still working to confirm the safety of all workers. Advantest said it would make every effort to minimize the impact on operations and production schedules due to the rolling blackouts the country is currently experiencing.

Test and packaging provider Amkor Technology Inc. said its facility in Kitakami, Iwate prefecture, was damaged during the earthquake, but was not hit by the subsequent tsunami. The Kitakami facility is currently closed due to power interruptions, Amkor said. Amkor stressed that Iate is the company's smallest facility in terms of units and net sales and that most of its operations are conducted outside of Japan. Amkor is working with its customers and suppliers to assess the situation and evaluate alternative sources of supply where appropriate, the company said. 

Dainippon Screen Group (DNS), a maker of photomasks and other products, said the majority of its facilities, located in the Kyoto and Shiga prefectures in southwest Japan, were undamaged and that  all procurement for production is under control. "So far shipment of our products is not affected,'' according to DNS. The company said all of its employees and their families the affected area are safe and said it is still checking for final confirmation.

Manufacturing facilities are operating as normal at JSR Corp.'s Chiba Plant, located in Ichihara City, Chiba, the company said. No physical damages or injuries to employees have been reported, JSR said. The company said its operations may be interrupted by rolling blackouts. But all production stopped at JSR's Kashima plant, located in Kamisu City, Ibaraki, the company said, when the earthquake triggered automatic interlocks, JSR said. No physical damage was observed at Kashima, but production remains halted while the company conducts physical inspections. The industrial water supply at Kashima has been interrupted and no information is available about when it will return, JSR said. One JSR employee suffered a minor injury during repair work, the company said.

On Tuesday (March 15), silicon wafer maker MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. said employees at its facility in Utsunomiya, approximately 130 miles from Sendai, were safely evacuated following the earthquake, and no injuries were reported. But operations at the facility remain suspended. As a result, MEMC expects that shipments from this facility will be delayed over the near term. MEMC has a network of 12 silicon wafer manufacturing facilities around the world. The Utsunomiya facility is one of eight that manufacture semiconductor wafers, and one of three that engages in the slicing and polishing of 300-mm wafers.The facility also engages in the slicing and polishing of a small volume of 200-mm wafers.  

Chemical and silicon wafer giant Shin-Etsu Group said manufacturing operations had restarted at its Shin-Etsu Chemical Gunma complex (Annaka and Matsuida). But Shin-Etsu said the   Gunma complex would be affected by the rolling blackouts if they were implemented by Tokyo Electric Power Co. The company said safety inspections were continuing at its other plants in Ibaraki and Fukushima prefectures. Three employees were ''slightly injured'' at Shin-Etsu Handotai’s Shirakawa plant in Ibaraki prefecture, Shin-Etsu said, but all have gone home after being treated in hospitals. [Update: On March 15, Shin-Etsu said inspections are continually being carried out at Shin-Etsu Chemical Kashima Plant (Kamisu, Ibaraki Pref.) and Shin-Etsu Handotai Shirakawa Plant (Nishigo Village, Fukushima Pref.), both of which are out of operation. Damage was found at some production equipments at the both plants until now. ''At present, it is still unclear how long it takes to restore such damaged equipment and facilities at the both plants.'']

Japanese silicon wafer maker Sumco Corp. issued a statement on March 14: ''Following the earthquake, the operations of the Yonezawa Plant (Yonezawa, Yamagata) have been suspended. None of the workers at the plant suffered injury. Currently, inspection and confirmation of the equipment, materials, and infrastructure of the Yonezawa Plant are being conducted in preparation for restarting the operations. Sumco Corporation intends to restart the operations upon completion of inspection and confirmation, while assigning top priority to safety. It should be noted that Sumco Corporation operates several plants in the Kyushu region that manufacture the same products as the Yonezawa Plant, and a system of backup supply is presently being considered.''

Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL), said the quake impacted the company's plants in the region, including facilities in Oshu, Matsushima and Sendai, all of which suspended operations in order to investigate potential damage and assess how long it may take to resume operations. TEL said it was close to being able to confirm that all of its employees are safe.

Consumer electronics firms/automakers
Consumer electronics companies also reported manufacturing interruptions and damage as a result of the earthquake, including Canon and Nikon, which made cameras, photolithography equipment and other products.

Canon Inc. said it suspended operations at eight manufacturing facilities in the north of Japan's main island, Honshu through at least Monday. These include Canon Inc. factories in Tochigi prefecture and Ibaraki prefecture as well as other facilities maintained by other members of Canon Group companies in Ibaraki, Aomori and Fukushima prefectures. Canon reported 15 people were injured in the quake at its facilities in Utsunomiya, Tochigi prefecture. Canon indicated that it will likely be some time before the facilities in Utsunomiya and the Fukushima Canon Inc. ink-jet printer manufacturing facility can resume operations. In the event that production operations may be suspended for one month or more, Canon said it would consider making use of alternate sites that were not damaged by the earthquake as a means of continuing production. Canon said the earthquake had a slight impact on Canon facilities in the western half of Honshu, but there have been no injuries and no significant damage to buildings or equipment reported there.

Kyocera Group reported Wednesday (March 16) that the earthquake damaged six of its production facilities in various regions of northeastern Japan. Kyocera Corp.'s Fukushima Tanagura plant, which produces handsets and base stations, suffered partial structural damage and equipment damage, the company said. Partial production at Fukushima Tanagura resumed on Tuesday, the company said. Production remains suspended at two plants, Kyocera said, a Kyocera Chemical Corp. facility that produces organic materials in Fukushima prefecture and another plant that produces quartz crystal components in Higashine City, Yamagata prefecture. Full production resumed at Kyocera Chemical plants in Saitama and Kanagawa prefectures Tuesday, Kyocera said, and full production was set to resume Thursday at a third chemical plant in Moka City, Tochigi prefecture. A quartz crystal components factory near Tokyo was undamaged and production was unaffected, Kyocera said. Two optical components manufacturing facilities in western Tokyo were undamaged but halted production until Tuesday, Kyocera said. The company acknowledged that rolling blackouts in the area could further cut into production.

Nikon Corp. said it suspended operations at five sites in Miyagi and Tochigi prefectures, including Sendai Nikon where the company makes cameras, Miyagi Nikon Precision, which manufactures devices for IC/LCD steppers and scanners and Tochigi Nikon, where the company builds interchangeable lenses and optical lenses. "We are suspending operations there and continuing to evaluate further details of the damage," Nikon said. The company said it could not provide a timetable for how soon these facilities would resume operation. Nikon said it set up an emergency headquarter for disaster control immediately after the earthquake. Nikon said some of its employees were injured in the quake, but did not provide specifics.

Automakers have also been hit hard, with a number of plant shutdowns and several companies noting that the supplier network has been "devastated."

Honda Motor Co. Ltd. suspended operations as of March 14 at five plants in Saitama, Tochigi, Shizuoka and Mie prefectures. These plants, as well as another in Kumamoto prefecture, will remain idle through March 20. From March 14 through 20, Honda will suspend regular operations at all Honda facilities in the Tochigi area, where damage was more serious, the company said. In an updated statement Wednesday (March 16), Honda said it is cooperating with electricity conservation efforts and rolling blackout measures and that it has made contact with all its Tier 1 suppliers in Japan and is collecting information from them about the state of their operations. The company also confirmed that one its employees, a 43-year-old R&D associate at the company's Tochigi R&D Center, was killed during the earthquake when a wall collapsed in a cafeteria. 

Isuzu Motor Ltd. said it would suspend manufacturing at its two Japanese plants throughout this week, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

Mazda Motor Corp. said that it would idle all four of plants in western Japan until Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said all of its manufacturing facilities are located outside the earthquake zone and that none have been affected by the Tohoku earthquake, but that some of its suppliers have reported damages. Mitsubishi said it suspended g plant operations on March 14 and 15 to prioritize safety verifications at its suppliers. The company said it currently plans to resume operations Wednesday.

Nissan Motor Co.said in a statement that it suspended operations at its Japan plants through March 13, but they reportedly did not reopen Monday. The Reuters news service reported Monday that Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said the best case scenario is for the company to resume manufacturing later this week. But Reuters reported that Ghosn said resumed production would probably not last long because the company's supplier network was devastated. According to Forbes, the disaster resulted in damage at six Nissan plants and the tsunami destroyed 2,300 completed vehicles, 1,300 of which were bound for the U.S.

Suzuki Motor Corp. said it incurred no damage to personnel, headquarters or manufacturing plants located in the Shizuoka prefecture region. "We are currently gathering information about any additional effects to Suzuki’s operations, including port distribution, plant and dealership operations, as well as our vendors and suppliers located in the damaged areas," the company said in a statement.

Toyota Motor Corp. Wednesday (March 16) extended its vehicle production halt at all plants in Japan, including subsidiaries, through at least March 22. Toyota said it would resume the production of replacement parts for vehicles already on the market starting Thursday. The company said it would restart production of parts for overseas vehicle production on March 21.