Japan's Renesa Electronics said on Tuesday that it expected the chip factory that caught fire in March to resume full capacity around mid-June after installing the final replacement equipment.

Production at the Naka chip plant in Ibaraki prefecture, japan, had returned to about 88 per cent of its pre-fire level by the end of may, the company said.

Renesas Electronics controls nearly 1/3 of the global market share of automotive microcontroller chips, and the fire has had a significant impact on global automotive production.