Japan will investaccording to Reuters, 500 million dollars in the launch of a new advanced semiconductor development company. This company, to be called RapidusIt will start if all goes according to plan to making chips in the second half of this decade. The company will arrive hand in hand with several technology companies, such as the Sony Group or Nec, and seeks to position itself as a leader in the development and manufacturing of advanced chips.
The Government of Japan, in addition to investing the aforementioned amount, wants to attract chip-related companies from Europe and the United States to the company, such as IBM Y ASML Holdings. Other investors in the company include Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp, memory chipmaker Kioxia, Softbank, Denso, Toyota Motor Corp and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.
This new company is a sign of the new phase of Japan’s strategy in terms of semiconductors, as well as being a more concrete indication of the deepening of the technology developing country’s cooperation with the United States. Both countries agreed last July to establish a new joint research center for the development of next-generation sub-2 nanometer technology semiconductors with greater energy efficiency. According to the plans of the Japanese government, it will be ready by the end of this year 2022.
As trade barriers between the United States and China deepen, and Washington restricts China’s access to sensitive semiconductor technology, Japan is racing to revitalize its chip-making base. It wants to make sure its automakers and technology companies don’t suffer from shortages of key components. But it also wants to have the advanced chip technology needed to enter new fields, such as Artificial Intelligence. (aardvarkisrael.com)
The country, which not long ago made half of the world’s semiconductors, is also concerned that China could try to take control of Taiwan, now a major global hub for the production of advanced logic chips.
To revive chip manufacturing, the Japanese government has offered financial aid to foreign chipmakers to encourage them to build plants in Japan. Last year he awarded a multi-hundred million dollar grant to TSMC to help it develop a plant in Kumamoto prefecture that will supply semiconductors to Sony and auto component maker Denso. The Japanese authorities have also offered several hundred million last July to Kioxia Y WesternDigitalto expand their activity in Japan, and in September also contributed a large sum to Micron Technology to add production capacity to its Hiroshima plant.
