980, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, lights were dim.
The 40th President of the United States, Wilson Reagan, stared at the file in front of him, was silent for a long time, and finally said:
We believe in the free market and cannot interfere.
At this time, American semiconductor companies are being beaten up by Japan to the point of taking care of themselves.
At the same time, in South Korea across the ocean, Samsung generation leader Lee Byung-chul shouted the slogan of "Semiconductors are the future of technology" .
Next door, we just woke up.
Among them, there is both the "counter-cyclical" struggle of South Korea and the rise of our "counter-bottleneck". But only Japan has gone through the cycle of catching up, glorious and declining.
They won the first ray of dawn in the ruins of the war, led the wave of the times in the ups and downs of development, and suffered a fateful defeat in the success of leading.
This painting of the country outlined by the rise and fall of the industry, undoubtedly has great " anatomy value" to us later, and also implies footnotes of Japan's unique national character.
Let’s walk into the industry story of Japanese semiconductors together, and use this to answer three questions :
How did Japanese semiconductors lose?
What kind of industrial personality does Japan have?
What is the inspiration for the semiconductor path that we have not yet completed?
01 The island nation of Japan Semiconductor
The number one hero in the rise of Japan's semiconductors is Korean War .
After World War II , the United States was very ambiguous about Japan. It wanted to support reconstruction, but was also afraid that the "Kamikaze Special Forces" would reappear. But the Korean War made Japan an instant "first rear", and a large number of military orders poured in, and was known in history as the "special demand prosperity".
1954 Tokyo
. The Soviet satellites and nuclear weapons are pressing step by step, has forced the US local electronics industry to "transfer to the military", creating an opportunity for Japan to undertake civilian electronics.
953, Tokyo Communications introduced the most advanced transistor technology from , the United States Westinghouse Electric , at a bargaining price of , and the giant Sony was born.
962, NECh purchased flat lithography technology from the United States Fairy Tong , marking that Japan officially has integrated circuit manufacturing capabilities .
Sony founder Akio Morita (left), NEC founder Fuhiko Iwara
A year later, the Japanese government made a very "Japanese" decision: requires NEC to open Fairchild technology to all Japanese electronic companies.
Subsequently, United Province established an industrial technology institute while taking the lead in researching technology; while promulgating "Electronics Industry Revitalization Measures" to restrict the entry of foreign capital and protect the domestic market.
The most typical example is that in 1964, the American giant Texas Instruments entered the Japanese market, but it ended up being hard for four years, and finally gritted its teeth and made an "unequal treaty":
can only establish a joint venture, hand over core technology, and disclose all patents, and its market share cannot exceed 10%.
Now, Texas Instruments, which trained Zhang Zhongmou, Zhang Rujing and other bigwigs,
From the very beginning, the Japanese electronics industry has a very distinctive National will .Compared with profit-seeking industrial capital, the national will is undoubtedly more suitable for dominating the "national destiny" industry with high capital density and high talent density. But on the other hand, the will of the country is in line with the national character, so those selfish, closed and conservative "island genes" inevitably integrate into the blood of Japanese semiconductors, laying a deep foreshadowing for future decline.
02 The 1960s
Throughout the 1950s, Japan was immersed in the huge dividends of "special demand prosperity". Shiro Ishikawa, president of the Japan Economic Federation, even bluntly said:
Korean War was a gift from God to Japan.
Japanese Electronics also followed the dividends, and in the 160s, American rockets hit the sky and landed manned on the moon, Americans watched live broadcasts from Sony's TV.
1960 Sony made its first TV
The Americans who came back to their senses immediately shattered Japan's trade protection. Japan's pitiful barrier is useless in front of "国国国国 ".
IBM, known as "Blue Giant ", took away 40% of Japan's market share in just one year.
What's more serious is that Japan found that 20% of the key raw materials can only be imported from the United States. The serious damage of , a "bottleneck" type, has had a decisive impact on the future development of Japan's semiconductor industry. is a later story.
00s US-Japan conflict background: Japanese people oppose the US-Japan Security Treaty
Everyone knows the 1980s Square Agreement , but few people know that as early as the 1960s, the United States defeated Japan once with its power.
However, they are about to usher in a new dawn.
03 Jedi counterattack
1 In 970, Intel , which separated from fairy children, replaced the magnetic core with semiconductor transistor, and launched the world's first mature dynamic random memory (DRAM). marks the official entry of the world's electronics industry into the semiconductor era.
The Japanese government keenly realized that the suppression of the United States is no longer important, and a new track has appeared.
The province of China immediately established the VLSI (ultra-large scale integrated circuit) technology research institute . The government invested 32 billion yuan and the company raised 40 billion yuan, covering the strongest electronics companies in Japan, including Hitachi , Fujitsu , Toshiba , Mitsubishi , Mitsubishi , NEC, and other strongest electronics companies in Japan.
70s Japanese VLSI Institute internally broke corporate barriers, collaboratively promoted, and worked hard to develop new technologies and new products. reached the specific production link, and then each company went its own way.
In just 4 years, VLSI invented 1,210 patents and formed a high-quality industrial group. On the other hand, Japan learned the lessons of being bored by the United States and focused on the research and development of upstream equipment. has formed a full industrial chain model that focuses on raw materials, design, manufacturing, and packaging and testing.
In addition, at that time, semiconductor terminal applications were mainly IBM mainframes, with slow replacement cycles and high quality requirements. Therefore, Japan has developed a quality standard with a service life of up to 25 years, which is perfectly in line with the traditional " craftsman spirit " of the island country.
60s IBM mainframe
That's it, Japan has gathered three plug-ins for "national R&D + full industrial chain + craftsman spirit", opening a counterattack against American semiconductors.
This is Japan, which combines aggressive pioneering and conservative closedness.
04 crushed the United States
1 In 980, the Japan Electronics Industry Association held a seminar on Washington . HP Company praised it without hesitation, which made the magazine "Electronics" incompetent and confronted:
Japanese companies taught Americans to manage quality, and Americans also personally proved that they taught correctly!
At that time, Japanese companies had already occupied half of the global semiconductor industry chain, crushing similar American products with the strategy of with the same quality but "a price is always 10% lower".
00s Japanese
Walkman and Fuji film occupy the world, while Sony is synonymous with high-end TVs around the world. The raw materials of chip silicon wafer , crucible for producing silicon wafers, and even the pearl of industrial crown lithography machine are all imprinted with strong Japanese elements.
Even the ancestors of the invention of lithography machines, GCA, K&S and Kasper, were stuck in the neck by Nikon.
html In the late 1960s, Japanese companies were driven back to their hometown by the trade stick; more than 10 years later, American companies were pressed to the ground by Japan and repeatedly rubbed.
Indomitable Intel took the lead in establishing the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) to lobby Washington.
At this time, Reagan is determined to crochet the banner of "neoliberalism" with Thatcher , and always refuses to interfere with the "free market".
"Soul mate": Reagan, Thatcher
On the contrary, Lee Byung-chung, the first generation of Samsung, wrote an article in the Korean media "Why should we enter the semiconductor industry" , pointing directly at Japan.
Immediately afterwards, the South Korean government came forward to support and integrate the laboratory, and the whole country copied Japanese homework , like a spark in the middle of the night, kicking off the 20-year battle between Japan and South Korea.
05 "Shameless" combination punch
1985, the United States, which was finally hit by Japanese products, forced Japan to sign "Platform Agreement" . This is regarded as a masterpiece that led to the "losing of 40 years" and is also seen as the beginning of the decline of Japanese semiconductors.
But in fact, after the signing of the Square agreement, Japan's semiconductors are still making rapid progress, with a global market share of 45%, and more than 80% of the US DRAM industry was beaten to bankruptcy.
Even Intel, the founder of DRAM, was forced to lay off 1/3 of its employees. Management gathered at California headquarters to discuss:
How to make the company decent bankrupt?
Finally, Intel made a difficult decision: exit DRAM and switched to CPU.
At the same time, Japan's Fujitsu will also take a purchase proposal in front of Fairchild Company.
Fairy Child is known as the West Point Military Academy in Silicon Valley. The founders of Intel, AMD, Atmel, KPCB and other giants have worked in Fairy Child. In the entire US semiconductor industry, there are as many as 400 companies related to Fairchild.
Fairchild company scattered in Silicon Valley
The arrogant Japanese finally deeply stimulated the United States. SIA, which lobbies for the entire six years, took advantage of the opportunity to throw out a reason that Washington could not calm down, and it is also the most familiar routine we are:
The rise of Japanese semiconductors endangeres the security of the United States!
In March 11986, Japan was recognized as DRAM dumping.
Another month, Japan's US$300 million chips were subject to 100% punitive tariffs, and Fujitsu's acquisition of Fairchild was rejected.
At the same time, the United States revealed that Toshiba violated the "Batuan" ban in 1983 and exported machine tools to the Soviet Union. 19 members of the MPs swung their sledgehammers and smashed Toshiba's radio live. Countless Americans shouted "Lao Tie 666" through TV.
Things have developed to this stage, and The disadvantages of Japan's serious reliance on the United States in politics and military are undoubtedly exposed. Finally, then Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Zene went to the United States in person and spent 100 million yen to publish an "apology statement" in more than 50 newspapers, and also said the golden sentence of "Japan wants to be strong and cannot do without the United States" .
1989, Japan was forced to sign the "Japan-US Semiconductor Guarantee Agreement" to completely open up semiconductor intellectual property rights.
The consequences brought about by surrender are endless . Just two years later, the United States unilaterally claimed that Japan had defaulted on its contract, and once again forced Japan to sign the second semiconductor treaty.
sign site Japanese representative forced his face to smile
At this time, Samsung, which had been losing money in the semiconductor field for three years, barely survived with government blood transfusions, but entered the American vision. The United States began to support South Korea to fight against Japan, and took the lead in developing 256M DRAM in 1994, leading Japan for the first time.
But what makes the United States desperate is that even though it suffers such a fierce (shameless) combination punch, Japanese semiconductor still had 53% of the market share in the early 1990s, and Japan accounted for 6 of the top ten semiconductor companies in the world.
shows how solid leading advantages have been established for Japan.
However, it was Japan itself that really defeated Japanese semiconductors.
06 Beat yourself
semiconductor industry has an iron rule: terminal has an absolute voice in the upstream industrial chain.
In the year when Intel surrendered, the graphical interface operating system was born, making up for the last shortcomings of personal computers (PCs) entering ordinary families.
. With the end of the Cold War , the semiconductor industry has a large-scale "military to civilians", the demand for mainframes plummeted, and the civilian market has exploded. With the popularity of PC, a new semiconductor market emerged.
PC
htmlIn the 170s, Japan successfully counterattacked with the new market created by transistor , which almost went bankrupt. But this time in the new PC market, the winner has become the latter.
htmlIn the late 180s, IBM's underlying technology research failed and turned to cooperate with Microsoft and Intel. The former provides operating systems, and the latter provides CPU. The decision of
directly gave birth to the monster that dominates the PC market - the Wintel Alliance. once captured 90% of the PC market.
They mastered the most core links of the PC industry, thereby controlling industry development and technological iteration. then formed a terminal counter to the upstream - the related parts industry must follow the rhythm of wintel to plan its own development.
Intel CEO Andrew Grove (right) and Bill Gates
Japan's proud DRAM is just here.
Compared with mainframes, PCs pay more attention to speed and cost, and Japan's 25-year life span DRAM instantly became useless. On the contrary, Samsung, which is regarded as a copycat by Japan, relies on rapid production expansion to pull Japanese semiconductors off the altar.
IBM's cooperation with wintel has created a new market, and used new market rules to break Japan's quality rules.
In other words, Japan was defeated by its own "craftsman spirit".
Japan's proud craftsmanship
The author of "The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Electronics Industry", Yoshio Nishimura, once bluntly said:
also produces 64M storage chips, and Japanese companies use 1.5 times the process to get a 98% yield rate. Samsung has only 83% yield rate, but the rate is twice that of Japanese companies. Japan was thrown away like this.
What's even more serious is that Japan made a huge strategic mistake during this period: perhaps it was because it was scared by the United States, and They blindly believed in the energy upstream of the industrial chain and misjudged the influence of the terminal on the industry.
When the US terminal brands were making rapid progress, the "Eight King Kongs" of Japanese consumer electronics were almost wiped out (except Sony). What is given up is , which is exactly the voice of the entire semiconductor industry.
Sony Chinese stores
Other side, global division of labor emerged in the 1990s. In addition to core industries, all American semiconductors were outsourced to South Korea and Southeast Asia, and the cost was quickly lowered.
Japan also engages in a "global division of labor", But they just opened their factories to Southeast Asia, using their own raw materials, equipment, and wafer fabs. The local country has become pure workers.
In other words, the idea in the United States is to eat meat and drink soup in order to significantly reduce costs. Japan's idea is that the elder brother eats meat and drinks soup, and the younger brother cleanses pots and washes dishes, and the cost only reduces the pitiful labor cost.
Japanese Canon's factory in Southeast Asia
quality advantage has been eliminated, and now even the cost advantage has been eliminated. Japan lost to its selfish and closed "full industrial chain" model.
998 Asian financial crisis, Samsung relied on its cost advantage to launch the "counter-cyclical law" against the trend, and Japan's DRAM industry collapsed.
07 Retreat to the upstream card South Korea
1999, Hitachi, NEC and Mitsubishi pulled their own DRAM business away and formed the national team " Erbida " to keep warm.
A year later, Hitachi and Mitsubishi merged their semiconductor departments to establish foundry companies "Reissa" .
In another five years, Toshiba and Renesas proposed a counterattack plan: jointly establish a 65nm process and 45nm process foundry to compete with Samsung and Intel.
As a result, Erbida was once again abused by Samsung in the 2008 financial crisis to bankruptcy. Renesas was also forced to split, because is worried that the "full industrial chain" will be broken.
Erbida declared bankruptcy
By 2020, Japan's semiconductor global share was only 6%.
once beat the United States and dominated the world's Japanese semiconductors. died in his short-sightedness of the terminal, his "demandness" for quality, and his greed for the entire industrial chain.
Japanese DRAM global share trend chart
However, everything has AB side. The full industrial chain built by Japan with greed allows them to retreat to the upstream position when DRAM is completely wiped out. has successfully transformed from the world's largest chip manufacturing power to the world's first supplier of semiconductor manufacturing equipment and raw materials.
- chip substrate insulator material is monopolized by Japan's " Aritomon ".
- electronic passive component field, Murata and TDK account for 80% of the world's share.
- The new generation of EUV photoresist, Japan owns 80% of the world's patents.
- chip core material high purity hydrogen fluoride and fluoropolyimide, accounting for 70% and 90% of the slightest.
19 main raw materials for semiconductors, and 14 Japanese types account for more than 50% of the global share.
These industries have one thing in common: The market size is not large and has great strategic significance - the downstream are all trillion-dollar markets, and they can stumbling others at any time.
In 2019, a dispute broke out between Japan and South Korea, and Japan directly cut off South Korea's supply of semiconductor raw materials. Samsung's leader Lee Jae-yong flew to Japan overnight and "kneeled on the ground and begged for mercy."
Lee Jae-yong flew to Japan to plead with mercy
Japan, which was defeated in the middle and lower reaches, stuck the Koreans' neck upstream.
08 40-year cycle, is the rise imminent?
1945 On August 30, 1945, "The Supreme Emperor" MacArthur airborne in Tokyo.
He was sitting in the only remaining Lincoln car in Japan, looking at the bumpy road outside the window, and a fire truck was opened in front of him.
He wrote in his memoir:
Looking from the back window, a lot of broken cars I have never seen before gathered together. This is the best transporter in Japan, is off.
MacArthur and the Japanese Emperor
A broken Japan is undoubtedly revealed.
60 years later, Japan's semiconductor went from nothing to something, from weak to strong, and eventually retreated to the upstream. During the period, there were both the whole country's unity and pioneering and enterprising, which was unique to the barren island countries; there was also the selfishness, closure and greed that could not be escaped in a small place.
National character determines national destiny.
The rise and fall of Japanese semiconductors still give us two important inspirations:
First, we must continue to expand our terminal positions, support our own HMOV, and compete for the industry's voice.
Second, we cannot fall into the misunderstanding of the entire industrial chain, actively integrate into the global industrial division of labor, Guangla Alliance, and make friends.
At the end of the story of the Japanese semiconductor industry, we have an ultimate question about Japan's "national destiny".
Japanese writer "Showa History" Kazuo Hamantori proposed the famous theory of "Japan's national destiny for 40 years", namely:
- From 1865 Meiji Restoration to winning Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Japan has gradually risen from a feudal backward country to a world power, is the first A rising period;
- From 1905 to the end of World War II in 1945, Japan gradually entered the abyss of militarism and was eventually defeated, was the first falling period;
- signed the square agreement from 1945 to 1985, Japan entered the ranks of developed countries from defeated countries, was the second rising period.
- From 1985 to the present, Japan has been in a slump under the "lost 20 years", and is the second period of whereabouts.
If you follow the theory of Half Fuji Ichiri, Japan will end its second whereabouts in 2025 and usher in its third rising period.
. Today, when anti-globalization swept the world, will the third rise of Japan be fulfilled in its huge advantages in the entire semiconductor industry chain?
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-