In 1990, Japan controlled almost half of the semiconductor market, whose turnover then did not exceed $38 billion in current prices. Now the share of this country has decreased to 10%, but the market turnover has grown at least ten times. Both the US and Japan can try to master advanced lithography without the participation of Taiwan, on which they are now heavily dependent in this area.
Image Source: TSMC
The current management of TSMC turned out to be favorable to the idea of localizing the contract manufacturing of semiconductor components in the USA and Japan. In the first case, a TSMC facility capable of producing 5-nm products should be built in Arizona by 2024. In the second case, a joint venture with Sony and Denso will be set up in Japan within a comparable time frame, which will produce a range of specific products requiring lithographic technology from 28 to 12 nm inclusive.
It turns out that by the time of their launch, new TSMC facilities outside of Taiwan will not use the most advanced lithography. At the same time, the US and Japanese authorities are interested in reducing or even eliminating the technological gap with Taiwan in the field of lithography. As explains Nikkei Asian Review, the two countries will combine their efforts in this area to jointly master 2nm and more advanced process technologies. At least, the relevant negotiations will be held by the heads of the relevant ministries of the United States and Japan.
Such an alliance has its own rational basis. In the US, IBM continues to develop cutting-edge processes, last May demonstrated a prototype of a 2nm memory cell, but with the introduction of technology in mass production, the “blue giant” should be helped by someone. In Japan, there are many specialists in both lithographic equipment and materials for printing microcircuits. The partners will not forget regarding mastering advanced layout methods that allow combining dissimilar crystals and arranging them in several tiers. It remains to be hoped that the American and Japanese authorities will not skimp on financing the relevant developments, because even the founder of TSMC in his assessments of such US activities more than once notedthat it will take many years and hundreds of billions of dollars to eliminate the technological backlog from the country’s authorities.
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