Huge support for semiconductors fails

TSMC Headquarters Ann Wang-REUTERS in Shintake City, Taiwan

In December 2021, the Japanese parliament passed a bill to subsidize up to half of the capital investment from the government for the construction of semiconductor factories in Japan. Prior to this, TSMC announced plans to build a large semiconductor factory in Kumamoto Prefecture in collaboration with Sony, and with the enactment of this law, the Japanese government has announced a plan to build a large semiconductor factory in this new factory. It is expected to subsidize about 100 million yen. [Tomoo Marukawa (Professor, Institute of Social Science, The University of Tokyo)] The popularity ranking of countries that want to move to the world, Japan is second and first ... What is made at the factory is only the technology of 28 nanometers in design rule (circuit line width) 10 years ago. With the mass production of 5 nanometer semiconductors starting, this is the Japanese semiconductor industry. Can't be revived. " I think so too. This subsidy should not be able to break through the phase of Japan's semiconductor industry, which is far behind South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States, and at best it will be able to maintain the status quo, and will this contribute to Japan's economic security? The logic is unknown in the first place. Economic security and competitiveness recovery are incompatible The confusion over this subsidy is that two different goals, "economic security" and "recovering the competitiveness of the semiconductor industry," are confused. Because it is. The strategy you should take depends on which of the two goals you are aiming for. Given the current state of the Japanese semiconductor industry, there is no way to pursue both at the same time. The Chinese government has also provided huge amounts of support to the semiconductor industry, but it has not achieved ridiculous results and is already wasting a considerable amount of money. China's determination to domestically produce semiconductors was triggered by the 1990 Gulf War. Seeing the power of American high-tech weapons, he realized the need to strengthen electronic technology. NEC in Japan cooperated considerably in terms of technology licensing and investment in fostering the semiconductor industry, which was promoted as a national project. However, although it started mass-producing DRAM at its factory in Shanghai, which NEC also invested in, the business failed due to the collapse of the dot-com bubble in 2001. Over the next decade or so, China's semiconductor industry developed primarily under the leadership of the private sector. For example, as domestic mobile phone and smartphone makers grew, fabless (= no factory) makers specializing in the design of mobile phone and smartphone ICs grew in anticipation of sales to them. Among them, HiSilicon (Kaishi), a subsidiary of Huawei (Huawei), a major telecommunications equipment company, and UNISOC (Shikou Nobuyoshi) have the third largest share in the world (16% share) as of the second quarter of 2020. It was in a decent position with 6th place (4% share).

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