Jiang Hui
According to Yomiuri News, Japan is planning to compile a multi-billion dollar budget to fund overseas chip operators participating in the program in the next few years, and consider inviting TSMC to cooperate with other overseas chip operators and Japanese equipment manufacturers and research institutions to establish an advanced chip wafer manufacturing plant.
TSMC responded to this on the 19th to Voice of Questionnaire on the 19th, and did not rule out any possibility, but there are currently no relevant plans.
Global protectionism rises
Japan was once a major manufacturer of semiconductor , but in recent years, it has gradually declined in the field of semiconductor manufacturing in Japan, but in the fields of core materials, Japan is still very strong.
This time Japan once again listed chip technology as the focus of national policy support. mainly considers that advanced chip technology is related to national security , and must be mastered again.
For the United States and Japan successively invite TSMC and other advanced semiconductor technology companies to set up factories in their own countries, reflecting that the global awareness of protectionism is rising under the trade war.
plus the uncertainty of the global spread of the new crown epidemic has also made governments think deeply that to ensure products and technologies that are relevant to national security, they must have the ability to produce them in the country.
Japan's semiconductor strength once surpassed the United States
Japan was once a semiconductor power, and once surpassed the United States, cultivating many semiconductor companies that were once glorious. DRAM big manufacturers once had Toshiba , NECh, Panisho , Mitsubishi, etc. Later, Toshiba withdrew from the DRAM industry, leaving only the NAND Flash industry; other DRAM factories merged into Erbida, and later went bankrupt in 2012.
In 2000, eight of the 20 semiconductor factories around the world were Japanese companies , including Toshiba, NEC, Mitsubishi , Hitachi , Fujitsu , Panasonic, Sharp, and Sony; by 2010, there were only five companies left, namely Toshiba, Renesas, Erbida, Sony, and Panasonic.
By 2019, according to IC Insights statistics, among the top 15 semiconductor factories in the world, only Japanese companies were Kioxia (former Toshiba) and Sony.
However, although Japan is gradually declining in the field of chip manufacturing, its strength in the fields of key materials and equipment is still very strong.
, especially . In the field of materials, Japan supplies about , more than 50% of the global semiconductor manufacturing materials required for , especially packaging materials, such as supplying package substrate , core layer materials for manufacturing substrates, epoxy resin solid-state packaging materials, wire frames, bonded wires, Underfill underfill (main material for covering crystal packaging), etc., almost all of which are handled by Japanese factories.
Handling, the main suppliers in the equipment field include Tokyo Electron, SCREEN Semiconductor Solutions, Hitachi High-Technologies, Advantest, etc.
Japan will re-strengthen semiconductor strength
According to Japan's Yomiuri News, the Japanese government intends to recruit overseas businesses with the ability to manufacture cutting-edge semiconductor finished products to set up advanced chip manufacturing fabs in Japan. The first one was named was TSMC and will coordinate and provide financial assistance.
Industry believes that the Japanese government’s plan is that can work together with overseas advanced chip technology operators such as TSMC, and combine with Japan’s advantageous equipment manufacturers (such as Tokyo Electron, etc.), materials industry, research institutions, etc., so that the semiconductor industry that was originally behind Japan can open up a new battlefield in the global technology industry.
Furthermore, the Japanese government will also provide overseas companies solicited for more than one year, with a total amount of billions of dollars in financial assistance.
TSMC has already cooperated with the Japanese academic community in the semiconductor field.
At the end of 2019, TSMC announced an alliance with the University of Tokyo, and the two parties will conduct organizational cooperation on advanced semiconductor technology.TSMC will provide wafer multiplication co-ordination services to the Systems Design Lab, d.lab at the School of Engineering of the University of Tokyo.
This laboratory will also use TSMC Open Innovation Platform Virtual Design Environment (VDE) to perform chip design. Furthermore, R&D personnel of both parties will also establish a cooperation platform to jointly study semiconductor technologies that support future computing.
The University of Tokyo System Design Laboratory was established in October 2019. It is a research organization combining industry-university cooperation to collaborate in designing specialized and specific applications-specific chips.
TSMC said at the time that the virtual design environment provides the laboratory's innovative personnel with a complete design architecture, which is a safe and flexible cloud design environment. The wafer ride-sharing service provided by TSMC can lower the entry threshold for prototype chips produced using the most advanced processes in the semiconductor industry.
In addition, TSMC also plans to conduct advanced research and cooperation with the University of Tokyo in various fields such as materials, physics, and chemistry to continue to promote the miniaturization of semiconductor technology.
TSMC's US 5nm factory mass-produced
TSMC's riotous case of setting up a factory in the United States was officially finalized a few days ago.
According to TSMC's plan, the wafer factory established in the United States is a 5nm manufacturing plant, located in Arizona, with a planned monthly production capacity of 20,000 12-inch wafers, which will directly create more than 1,600 high-tech professional job opportunities and indirectly create thousands of job opportunities in the semiconductor industry ecosystem.
Furthermore, the 5nm fab of will start construction in 2021, spending about US$12 billion in the form of a special project, and mass production is expected to begin in 2024.
originally TSMC had many considerations about the US government's waving to set up a factory in the United States. However, the US said it would provide appropriate financial subsidies in accordance with a similar semiconductor revitalization plan, so that the cost of TSMC's production in the United States is very similar to that of production in Taiwan and is also competitive. Therefore, it asked TSMC to nod and agree to establish an advanced chip manufacturing factory in the United States.
TSMC also clearly pointed out that whether the US can obtain subsidies for setting up factories is the key, and other incentives for setting up factories in the US are high-tech talents, as well as the rich resources of Alessanna's land, green water, electricity, etc.
