The report added that the expected factory would be built in southwest Japan, near Sony’s image sensor plant
A recent report by Japan’s Nikkan Kogyo newspaper revealed that the country is hoping to receive an investment of 1 trillion yen ($9.2 billion) from chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) and Sony Group to build Japan’s first 20 nanometre chip foundry.
The report added that the expected factory would be built in southwest Japan, near Sony’s image sensor plant, although further details on the proposal or when it was made were not disclosed.
As per Reuters, both Sony and TSMC have declined to comment on the matter.
Japan’s most advanced semiconductor plant is a 40 nanometre chip factory operated by Renesas Electronics Corp near Tokyo. A 20 nanometre chip is more powerful as it packs more transistors into a smaller space, said Reuters.
Considering the ongoing chip crisis and the subsequent argument that Taiwan held too much power over chip production since most of the world’s chip come from Taiwanese chip foundries like TSMC, countries like US and Japan have begun to seriously ramp up local production in the country in order to make themselves more self-reliant and also curb the possibility of a future crisis of such nature.
It has been reported recently that Japan is planning to boost expenditure on increasing the local production of advanced semiconductors and batteries under this year’s growth agenda.
