Japan chipmaker Renesas soars on Apple talks report

 Shares in Japan's Renesas Electronics surged in Tokyo Wednesdayfollowing a report it is in talks with Apple to sell the US giant its stake in a unit thatdesigns microchips for liquid crystal displays.Chipmaker Renesas jumped as much as 19 percent in early trade before settling backto 857 yen ($8.25) by the break, up 9.31 percent. The Nikkei business daily said Apple was eyeing Renesas SP Drivers, which makesabout a third of the world's chips that control small and midsize liquid crystaldisplays, as it looks to boost resolution and battery life in its popular gadgets.Apple wants to buy Renesas' entire 55 percent controlling stake in the company -- ajoint venture with Japan's Sharp and Taiwan's Powerchip -- for about 50 billion yen($480 million), it said.The report said the deal may be part of a wider move by Apple to bring keyproduction in-house and move away from outsourcing to a range of suppliers thatmake its iPhones and iPads.Renesas declined to comment beyond saying that "our company and Renesas SPdrive are studying various possibilities for our further growth, but there is nothingthat has been decided at this point".The report comes days after the respected Nikkei said Apple willreleaseitsnewestiPhoneinSeptember, with higher resolution and bigger screens, its latest salvo inthe smartphone wars where it has lost global market share to rivals such asSamsung.Renesas, the world's biggest supplier of automotive microcontroller chips, was created through a merger of the chip units of Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric and NEC.However, it has been forced to implement painful restructuring measures, includingshedding more than 1,000 jobs in Europe, as it said in February it expects to report anet loss of 21.8 billion yen in the fiscal year to March.-- Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this story -