Their companies lack the scale of their rivals

The Japan government needs its semiconductor industry to be great again. The biggest. In fact, it was in the past. In 1988 NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Matsushita and other Japanese companies hoarded nothing less than 50% of the chips industry. However, Today none of these companies It is positioned among the leaders of A sector dominated with iron fist by Taiwanese, American, Dutch, South Korean and German companies.

Japan is currently investing more money in its sector of integrated circuits than the US, Germany, France or the United Kingdom. Not in terms of net value, but its effort is greater if we weigh the investment of these countries on their gross domestic product (GDP). The US dedicates 0.21% of its GDP to its semiconductor industry, and Germany 0.41%. France, according to Nikkei Asia0.2%, and, finally, the United Kingdom 0.04%. The difference is very significant and puts on the table the effort that Japan is making with 0.71% of its GDP.

However, this country will not be easy to compete from you to you with Taiwan or South Korea in the integrated circuit industry. Toshikazu Maeda, the general director of the company specialized in the manufacture of equipment to produce Marumae chips, holds that many Japanese companies lack the necessary scale to compete effectively and increase their income. In fact, he regrets that most of the Japanese companies are not growing in full rise of the artificial intelligence (AI). To remedy it, it proposes a solution: smaller companies should merge to grow and be ready to react to the next great opportunity.

Rapidus is Japan’s best option to compete with South Korea and Taiwan

Japan currently has dozens of very specialized small businesses that manufacture components for ASML either Tokyo Electronwhich are two of the largest manufacturers of photolithography and wafering processing equipment. As Maeda defendsits production capacity is too modest to compete with giants from other countries, such as South Korean companies Samsung or SK Hynix, which produce some of their integrated circuit manufacturing equipment, or the American applied materials, among many others. However, if we stick to the manufacture of Japan Chips already has a company that aspires to compete with TSMC, Intel or Samsung.

Rapidus corporation It has been expressly created to replace Japan at the forefront of integrated circuits. Interestingly, it is a very young company. It was founded on August 10, 2022 By the Japanese government With an initial capital of 7,346 million yen (just under 46 million euros) contributed by, and here comes the interesting, Sony, Toyota, Nec, Softbank, Kioxia, Denso, Nippon Telegraph and Mufg Bank. The initial capital invested in the constitution of this company is not very bulky, but there is no doubt that the companies that participate in it have an indisputable relevance in the sectors of technology, automotive and telecommunications.

Rapidus is currently putting a circuit manufacturing plant integrated in northern Japan, in the city of Chitose (Hokkaido), in which it plans to produce semiconductors of 2 Nm. The first prototypes of these chips They are already readybut large -scale manufacturing will not arrive at best until 2027. So far there is nothing really surprising because presumably at that time TSMC, Samsung and Intel will already be manufacturing integrated circuits with comparable lithographs.

What is causing the new Rapidus factory to monopolize the looks of the semiconductor sector is that, according to Atsuyoshi Koike, which is the president of the company, it will be completely automated. Its purpose is resort to robots and AI To set up an automated production line that will be specialized in the manufacture of 2 Nm chips for AI applications. Its plan consists, in short, to produce integrated circuits faster, with a lower and more quality cost.

To manufacture these semiconductors, equipment of extreme ultraviolet lithography (UVE) produced by the Dutch company ASML, and practically all manufacturing processes are automatic. However, the tests of test and validation, interconnection and packaging of the chips are still largely carried out manually in most manufacturing plants. According to Rapidus, its automation technology of all these processes will allow you to reduce the delivery time of your chips by 66% compared to the times they usually offer TSMC and Samsung.

If this Japanese company finally achieves its purpose and its competitors do not improve its efficiency will be able to deliver its semiconductors In a third of the time spent by their rivals. A priori is a stinging enough asset for Rapidus to grow in a perceptible way, although for the moment it is just a conjecture. Whatever this company seems to have everything well tied.

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