Japan To Invest Up To $500 Million To Manufacture Advanced Chips (reuters.com) 20
Japan said on Friday it will invest up to 70 billion yen ($500 million) in a new semiconductor company led by tech firms including Sony and NEC as it rushes to re-establish itself as a lead maker of advanced chips. From a report: "Semiconductors are going to be a critical component for the development of new leading-edge technologies such as AI, digital industries and in healthcare," Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura said at a news briefing. The new chip company will be named Rapidus and aims to begin making chips in the second half of the decade, he added.
As trade friction between the United States and China deepens and Washington restricts Beijing's access to advanced semiconductor technology, Japan is rushing to revive its chip manufacturing base to ensure its carmakers and information technology companies do not run short of the key component. Japan is also concerned that China may attempt to take control of Taiwan, the global hub for advanced chip production.
As trade friction between the United States and China deepens and Washington restricts Beijing's access to advanced semiconductor technology, Japan is rushing to revive its chip manufacturing base to ensure its carmakers and information technology companies do not run short of the key component. Japan is also concerned that China may attempt to take control of Taiwan, the global hub for advanced chip production.
Nice (Score:2)
Running the inevitable guntanks on US chips would be quite bad
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U.S. mostly doesn't make chips even if bean counting and marketing for them are done here
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there are some fabs, but most chips aren't made here. The most advanced chips aren't made here.
I don't think you know what you are talking about.
Can't get there from here (Score:2)
Rather vacuous Subject and your content sounds downright ignorant. One of the main "problems" with Article Nine is that the Japanese can't produce offensive weapons. Yeah, I know the LDP wants to amend the Constitution, but they've been saying that for a LONG time now.
Anyway, this story did get a lot of play on NHK recently but I'm quite skeptical that the project will go anywhere. The Japanese seem to have lost their mojo, so to speak. I remember back when I thought the Fifth Generation computer project so
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Nobody expects Canada's wood-based ICs!
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Nobody expects Canada's wood-based ICs!
Okay, and I'd give you the Funny if I ever could, but I think it would have been funnier as something like:
"Nobody expects the Spanish wood-based ICs!"
Which (predictably?) got me to thinking about wood-based AIs leading to cell-based AIs using cell-based ICs which led to... Wait a minute, that's us! Haven't we met that enemy somewheres before?
Underfunded? (Score:2)
I thought a conventional fab line for current silicon tech generally required at least $1B capital investment. And this would be for leading edge stuff otherwise what's the point. Did prices drop or something?
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I thought a conventional fab line for current silicon tech generally required at least $1B capital investment. And this would be for leading edge stuff otherwise what's the point. Did prices drop or something?
It says right in TFS that the Japanese government is partnering with tech firms. Sony and NEC are two huge electronics companies, and other companies are involved too. Presumably at least Sony and NEC are investing money, and probably other companies are as well.
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And right after the fab is done, Sony will sue them all for stealing their intellectual property.
Seriously? (Score:3)
That amount seems like chump change compared to what the US and China is investing. Heck, even South Korea is committing $450 billion over the next ten years. Reference: https://spectrum.ieee.org/sout... [ieee.org]
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This is Japan, they do everything faster, smaller and cheaper.
The end of globalization? (Score:5, Insightful)
I never liked globalization, from the standpoint that it leads to supply chain vulnerability through a lack of diversity and too many single points of failure. The Covid pandemic proved that; for example, here in Canada we couldn't even make masks any more and were behind in vaccine development. We used to make masks here, and our pharmaceutical industry used to amount to a lot more than just pumping out generic drugs after patents expired.
Now the world is scrambling because the established order has been overturned by the pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the political situation in China. Design and manufacturing are once again becoming national rather than international, and I think that's a good thing. This will re-build a level of resilience and independence that have been in short supply for too many decades.
Now if only we can learn and remember this lesson, and not fall back on putting too many eggs into too few baskets once things ease up. This is where government policy and enforcement would come into play if the government agendas weren't being so heavily influenced by corporate lobbying and backdoor financial contributions.
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There are certain things you should not "globalize". I feel it most in my sector, security. Security, especially in finance, is something that is rarely outsourced, if anything, it's nearshored to neighboring countries where you may still have kinda-sorta cheaper wages but still about the same level of stability. You notice this a lot in the EU. Anything security, if outsourced at all, is kept within the EU, albeit in "cheaper" areas like Romania and Slovakia. You do NOT outsource your security to India.
Wit
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...fewer masks being produced due to the increased expense of manufacturing them in Canada and Canada would be unlikely to manufacture all of the masks used in its own country and certainly wouldn't manufacture more than it could use... It's therefore unlikely that local production would have been able to handle the massive spike in demand either and local production is just as useless if there isn't a local supply chain that can provide additional resources required to manufacture more of those goods.
Some local production would have been better than none - then there would have been some capacity to ramp up quickly and meet at least some of the early critical demand. As it was, even hospitals were short - local production could have at least eased that problem significantly.
You also don't consider the opportunity cost that for Canada to manufacture it's own masks means that it needs to use labor and other materials that would otherwise be used to manufacture something of greater value.
I think that's only true if there is essentially zero unemployment and no surplus of materials. In the general case, I think the opportunity cost