Can Japan Regain Semiconductor Leadership?

By SemiWiki

February 25, 2013

In the 1980s, Japan was seen as the leader in the semiconductor industry. Their quality was higher, especially in memories, and the US was worried about falling behind. In fact Sematech was created in 1987 by the US government and a consortium of 14 US-based semiconductor companies primarily to pool investment on common problems and regain competitiveness of the US semiconductor industry versus the Japanese. However, today, Japan is largely seen as an also-ran in the semiconductor business. It is very inwardly focused on the Japanese market, and consolidation really is only allowed to happen in Japan, so that Hitachi and Mitsubishi merged to form Renasas and the NEC's semiconductor business was folded in too and then bailed out by the Japanse government. Meanwhile, Elpida became the focus for memory but eventually filed for bankruptcy and is (probably) being acquired by US-based Micron.

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