Fire at chipmaker further tightens supply to car sector

Bosch, the world's largest car parts supplier, said on Monday that a fire that had hit production at a semiconductor supplier was further tightening crucial supply of chips to the automotive industry.

Bosch said the shortage, which it said was affecting integrated circuits, automotive microcontrollers as well as application-specific integrated circuits, was also affected by weather-related production issues at other chipmakers.

Bosch did not specify which companies it was referring to.

Toyota, Nissan, Honda and other Japanese carmakers scrambled on Monday to assess the impact on their production of a fire at a Renesas Electronics chip plant that could aggravate a global semiconductor shortage.