A holographic robotic arm that makes semiconductors.
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Japan said on Tuesday it had approved up to 590 billion yen ($3.89 billion) in additional subsidies to chipmaker Rapidus Corporation as the country catches up with other countries in semiconductor manufacturing.
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said at a press conference on Tuesday that the latest round of support will include up to 53.5 billion yen for the research and development of back-end processes such as chip packaging.
Rapidus Corporation was established in 2022 by the Japanese government and eight domestic companies to develop and manufacture advanced semiconductors. Toyota Motor Corp., Sony Group and other companies have invested billions of yen in Rapidus.
Rapidus has received 330 billion yen in funding from the Japanese government between 2022 and 2023, and will begin mass production of 2-nanometer wafers in Chitose City, Hokkaido from 2027.
It will compete with industry leader TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, which plans to start mass production of 2-nanometer wafers in 2025.
TSMC and Samsung currently produce 3nm wafers, while RapidusCurrently under construction Advanced semiconductor factory located in Chitose.
In general, reductions in nanometer size allow for more powerful, more efficient wafers that pack more transistors on a single semiconductor.
Rapidus said in April 2023 its workers Has begun cooperation with IBM for research and development.
Japan has been working hard to regain its status as a semiconductor powerhouse that was lost to countries such as Taiwan and South Korea.
“Japan accounted for more than half of the global semiconductor market in the 1980s, but other countries have led the industry since then. While factories in other parts of the world are currently mass-producing 3-nanometer wafers, the most advanced generation of wafers In Japan, it is now 40nm wafers.” The Japanese government stated in the report last month.
In recent years, the Japanese government has provided substantial investment support to attract domestic and foreign semiconductor companies such as TSMC, Samsung and Micron.
British Semiconductor Recently opened the first wafer factory in Japan Japan received support from its government in February to diversify supply chains away from Taiwan amid rising trade tensions between the United States and China.
Micron also announced that in May 2023 It will become the first semiconductor company to bring extreme ultraviolet technology to Japan, producing next-generation dynamic random access memory chips at its Hiroshima factory.
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