Highlights: Semiconductors: Taiwanese group TSMC inaugurates a new factory in Japan. TSMC's first Japanese factory, located in Kyûshû, in the south of the country, cost more than 8 billion euros, subsidized up to 40% by the government. Japan has a lot of catching up to do. At the end of the 1980s, Japanese manufacturers produced more than 50% of the semiconductors used worldwide. But they have been supplanted by their more competitive Taiwanese or South Korean competitors.

In Asia, the world number in semiconductors, the Taiwanese group TSMC, inaugurated its first factory in Japan on Saturday February 24. In the context of tensions with China, the supplier of the giants…

Semiconductors: Taiwanese group TSMC inaugurates a new factory in Japan

In Asia, the world number in semiconductors, the Taiwanese group TSMC, inaugurated its first factory in Japan on Saturday February 24.

In the context of tensions with China, the supplier to giants Apple and Nvidia in particular, has heard calls from many governments to relocate part of its production outside the island.

And its choice to settle in the archipelago owes nothing to chance.

A new semiconductor factory managed by the Japanese group JASM, a subsidiary of the Taiwanese group TSMC, was inaugurated in Kyûshû, southern Japan, on February 24, 2024. AP

By: RFI Follow

With our correspondent in Tokyo

Bruno Duval

TSMC's first Japanese factory, located in Kyûshû, in the south of the country, cost more than 8 billion euros, subsidized up to 40% by the government.

Government which has made the revival of the microprocessor sector its priority, to the point of devoting a budget of around twenty billion euros to it by 2027.

Japan has a lot of catching up to do.

At the end of the 1980s, Japanese manufacturers produced more than 50% of the

semiconductors

used worldwide.

But they have been supplanted by their more competitive Taiwanese or South Korean competitors.

Now, their market share is only 7%.

Read alsoSemiconductors: demand reinforced by the rush towards artificial intelligence

However, this foreign dependence is perilous in terms of economic security: during the Covid-19 pandemic, the disruption of global microprocessor supply chains heavily penalized Japanese automobile manufacturers.

Now, Tokyo aims to create a “

Nippon Valley

” – like the American

Silicon Valley

With TSMC offering its employees salaries 20% higher than the national average, the government hopes that the influx of such investments will lead to a "virtuous circle" of rising prices and wages, which would allow Japan to turn the page of thirty years of deflation.

Also read: How Europe intends to defend itself against China in the semiconductor battle

Semiconductors: Taiwanese group TSMC inaugurates a new factory in Japan

Semiconductors: Taiwanese group TSMC inaugurates a new factory in Japan

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