Japan will launch a large number of new fabs in 2022-2024

Image source: Electronic Times

As the Japanese government increases its support for local IC manufacturing, several new fabs, including joint ventures between TSMC and Sony, will be built in Japan. According to industry insiders, these fabs are expected to go live between 2022 and 2024.

The Electronic Times quoted sources as saying that some of the government subsidies for domestic cutting-edge chip manufacturing investment will be used for a joint venture factory between TSMC and Sony, which is scheduled to be put into operation by the end of 2024. According to The Japanese business magazine Diamond Weekly, TSMC expects to fulfill Sony's cmOS image sensor and automotive MCU orders in the joint venture, as well as Toyota's order for self-driving chips.

Sony has also expanded its production base in Isaya, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan, which mainly produces CMOS image sensors (CIS) for smartphones. According to Sony, a new plant called Fab5 has been built and will begin operations in April 2021. Sony will reportedly continue to expand fab5 production facilities to produce high-resolution and high-performance CIS, with additional fab capacity coming online around the middle of the year.

Industry sources said that the new memory factory project planned by Jiaoxia and Micron Technology is also expected to receive subsidies from the Japanese government. Kiyoshi is building another 3D NAND flash memory plant in the kita of Iwate Prefecture, while Micron is looking to increase investment in Hiroshima Prefecture, where its DRAM production base is located. Cavalier and Micron expect to start operations of the new fab in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

In addition, Toshiba and Mitsubishi Electric are building new power semiconductor fabs at their plants in Ishikawa and Hiroshima, respectively, and production is expected to begin in 2023-2024. Toshiba revealed in March 2021 that it plans to expand the Ishikawa plant to add a 12-inch plant for the production of power equipment, and plans to start mass production in the first half of fiscal 2023.

According to SEMI, starting in 2021, a total of 27 factories and production lines will begin to install equipment, most of them in China and Japan. Japan's Fab equipment spending is expected to grow by 29 percent by 2022, when global Fab equipment spending will climb to an all-time high of more than $98 billion. (Proofreading | Value）