TOKYO — Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics on Wednesday said that its operating profit more than doubled in the January to March quarter, despite a fire that brought production to a halt for four weeks.

The company’s three-month operating profit came to 30.1 billion yen ($277 million) as sales grew 14% to 203 billion yen.

Renesas’ production was disrupted between March 19 and April 16 by a fire at one of its six wafer fabrication plants, the front end of chip production.

Renesas, the world’s second-largest manufacturer of automotive semiconductors, has three other plants for assembly and testing, the back-end of chip production.

Renesas believes an electricity overload led to the fire, but the official cause has yet to be determined.

The plant resumed production on April 17 but suffered another incident on April 21, with smoke reportedly coming from the power panel of a transport system on the same floor where the earlier fire occurred. Output at the plant was not seriously disrupted by the second fire.

Renesas operates as a “fab-lite” manufacturer, outsourcing part of its production to foundries such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. That business model has allowed Renesas to avoid investing in costly production facilities.

But the global chip shortage this year caused by a surge in demand for computers and servers amid the pandemic, and the subsequent rise in remote work, has led to calls for more chips to be made in-house rather than outsourced.

Renesas CEO, Hidetoshi Shibata, said there has been no change to the company’s strategy of operating as a fabless manufacturer.

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