More than 40 years ago, Japan ranked first in the world in semiconductors, which made American companies breathless. However, following being suppressed, Japan’s advantages gradually disappeared. Now it mainly has advantages in some semiconductor equipment and materials fields, and has fallen behind in advanced technology.
There are still many semiconductor giants in Japan, such as Sony, Kioxia, Renesas, and Softbank (acquired ARM), but the advanced technology has been out of stock, and it has been developed to 65nm around 2010, and it will be able to produce a small amount of 45nm, 28nm and later. We have to rely on foundry companies such as TSMC.
Although the technology has fallen behind, Japan’s Fuxing Semiconductor has huge ambitions. Eight companies including Sony, Toyota, Kioxia, Mitsubishi, and Softbank jointly funded the establishment of Rapidus. In the years from 2025 to 2030, OEM services will be provided to other companies.
Jumping directly from the 45nm process to the 2nm process, this wave of overtaking in Japan is unprecedented in the history of semiconductors.
Getting the 2nm process requires at least three breakthroughs, one is technology, one is capital, and the other is the market. In terms of technology, Japan hopes to cooperate with IBM in the United States. The latter demonstrated the 2nm process two years ago, but IBM’s 2nm The process is still at the laboratory level, and it is far away from mass production.
As for funding, Rapidus Chairman Tetsuro Higashi said earlier this month that the company would need regarding 7 trillion yen ($54 billion),In this regard, the Japanese government has provided and will continue to provide a large amount of subsidies, most of which still depend on taxpayers to foot the bill.
However, one of the most critical issues of Japan’s 2nm process is who will use it, who is the customer,No matter in the field of PC or mobile phone, Japanese companies are no longer dominant.Competing with TSMC for customers such as Apple, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, AMD, etc., Japan is facing problems of cost and technical reliability.
In short, the revival of Japan’s 2nm process has great dreams, but every process is not easy.