Japan launches ‘last chance’ operation to stay in semiconductor race

It is the operation of ” last chance ” for Japan in the semiconductor war. The archipelago announced Friday, November 11 the creation of a national champion who can compete with the Taiwanese and South Korean giants. For the government as for the eight manufacturers involved, the new entity called Rapidus must put the country back at the forefront of the sector and secure a supply highly dependent on Taiwan, which is today subject to significant geopolitical risks.

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Rapidus will focus on semiconductors for transport, smart cities and artificial intelligence, launching the production of chips engraved in 2 nanometers (Nm) from 2027. Taiwan’s world number one, TSMC, and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics began production of 3 Nm chips in 2022 and are due to switch to 2 Nm models in 2025.

“In five years, we will have state-of-the-art foundry operations in Japan”, said Atsuyoshi Koike. The former head of memory chip maker Western Digital Japan is leading the project with Tetsuro Higashi, the former president of electronics supplier Tokyo Electron.

Eight groups mobilized

Toyota, Sony, NEC and even NTT are among the eight groups mobilized in the Rapidus project. Initially, they will release 7.3 billion yen (51 million euros) to launch the activity, to which will be added 70 billion yen (486 million euros) in public subsidies. Rapidus should then benefit from 5,000 billion yen (35 billion euros) of investments over ten years.

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At the same time, the government will create a Leading Edge Semiconductor Technology Center (LSTC) before the end of 2022. It will house research and development activities for next-generation semiconductors, carried out in cooperation with foreign groups such as the American IBM.

“In this way, we want to strengthen the Japanese semiconductor industry and its competitiveness”explained Yasutoshi Nishimura, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry.

The bet is ambitious for the third world economy, whose industrialists dominated the market until the beginning of the 21st century.^e century. The result of a government project in the 1970s, the Japanese semiconductor industry has given rise to globally competitive groups such as Hitachi and NEC. At the end of the 1980s, Japanese companies held more than half of the world market.

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