Sony and TSMC signed a binding deal on August 11 to build smartphone image sensors in Kumamoto, contributing about 747 billion yen ($4.7 billion) toward production in 2029. TSMC takes only 38% and lets Sony lead.
The July 28, 2026 Kumamoto earthquake hit shindo 7 and stopped chip plants run by Renesas, Sony, Mitsubishi Electric, TSMC's JASM and Tokyo Electron. The fab the world watched was not the real chokepoint: a coater/developer plant with roughly 90 percent of the world market was.
TSMC, the world's largest foundry, is quitting GaN power-chip manufacturing. ROHM, which built its flagship 650V parts inside TSMC's fabs, has licensed the technology and is racing to mass-produce in Hamamatsu by 2027. A look at the China-US rivalry and Japan's vertical-integration bet.
Tokyo Ohka Kogyo is No. 1 in photoresist with a 24.7% share and No. 2 in EUV resist with 28%. How a 1936 maker of coal-lamp battery material became a chokepoint in the AI chip supply chain.
Intel installed the first production-grade High-NA EUV machine; TSMC bought one but kept it out of production. Being slow to the newest lithography once cost Intel a lost decade. Is TSMC repeating that mistake? Its confidence rests on Japan: Mitsui Chemicals' EUV pellicle and the HOYA/Shin-Etsu/AGC mask-blank near-monopoly (about 90% share).
Mitsui Chemicals was first in the world to mass-produce the EUV pellicle, a free-standing film tens of nanometers thick. From the ASML license to the carbon-nanotube pivot and a 2027 upgrade, here is why one invisible bottleneck sits with a single Japanese plant.
Not TSMC, not ASML. A Japanese chemical maker with ~$240M in sales quietly supplies about 70% of the world's photoresist sensitizer: the ingredient inside the ingredient that prints every advanced chip.
Asahi Kasei has developed a photosensitive polyimide film for advanced semiconductor packaging, turning a liquid material into a laminated film, the same playbook behind ABF. We explain what it means for AI chiplet packaging, how it stacks up against US and Korean rivals, and why Japan keeps winning the materials game.
TSMC's Japanese subsidiary JASM posted a quarterly profit of NT$951 million (about $30 million / ¥4.78 billion) in Q1 2026, the first time the Kumamoto fab has been in the black since mass production began in December 2024. We unpack what the 14-month turnaround means against the backdrop of Japan's ¥1.23 trillion in subsidies, the Sony-Denso-Toyota partnership, TSMC's Arizona and Dresden expansions, and Rapidus's high-stakes 2nm bet.
Kioxia forecast a 48-fold jump in Q1 net profit to 869 billion yen ($5.5 billion), making the Japanese NAND maker Japan's single-largest AI beneficiary on a quarterly basis after Toyota. We unpack the US ADS listing plan, the supercycle reshaping NAND prices, the HBM gap with Samsung and SK Hynix, and what it all means for Japan's broader semiconductor revival.
Taiwanese buyers now account for 62% of all foreign home purchases in Tokyo's 23 wards, according to data released by Japan's government for the first time. Behind this surge: a historic yen, a Taipei property bubble exceeding Tokyo, TSMC's Kumamoto pipeline, geopolitical hedging, and Taiwan's AI boom—all converging at once.
Nikon posted a record net loss of 86 billion yen (about $548 million) for the year ended March 2026, dragged down by a 90.6 billion yen writedown on its German SLM Solutions metal 3D printer acquisition. As Canon attacks the lithography market and TSMC Kumamoto ramps up 3nm production, Japan's optics giant is missing its own country's semiconductor boom. We unpack the ASML technology gap, the diversification bets that went wrong, the EssilorLuxottica stake, and the new mid-term plan built around "near-leading-edge" ArF immersion tools.
Sony Semiconductor Solutions has signed an MOU with TSMC to form a next-generation image sensor joint venture. Why is the 51% market leader pairing with Taiwan instead of going it alone? We compare it with the US CHIPS Act, EU Chips Act, and Korea's K-Chips Act, and explore the Apple-Samsung tug-of-war shaping the physical-AI era.
Sony Group's FY2025 results: record $9.2B operating profit on $79.5B in sales, but net income fell 3.4% as the Honda EV joint venture imploded. PS5 cumulative sales hit 93.6M units, the memory crunch forced Sony to throttle PS5 production, and a fresh TSMC deal cements its image-sensor empire. With Crunchyroll, Demon Slayer's $750M global hit, and a $3.2B buyback, this is the IP conglomerate Disney should be watching.
Kao, famous for Biore and Attack, has brought its first overseas semiconductor cleaning center online in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Ajinomoto, the MSG maker, is putting over 25 billion yen into ABF insulation films that hold nearly 100% global share, and has bought land in Gifu for a third plant. How Japanese consumer goods companies, alongside Shin-Etsu, SUMCO, JSR and TOK, became indispensable to the AI chip supply chain, and how they compete with US, European, Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese rivals.
Kumamoto Prefecture, Koshi City and Mitsui Fudosan signed a partnership agreement on April 27 to launch a 31-hectare 'Kumamoto Science Park' core hub — modeled on Taiwan's Hsinchu — to anchor Japan's semiconductor revival around TSMC's 3nm Kumamoto fab by 2030. We compare it with the US CHIPS Act and EU Chips Act, and unpack the land-price spikes and labor crunch already reshaping the region.
Global chip sales hit $88.8B in Feb 2026, up 61.8% YoY. Yet Japan is the only region with 9 consecutive months of decline. We analyze the structural reasons behind Japan's stagnation amid the AI-driven global boom.
Japan's AIST has established ASiST, a new consortium bridging chip design, front-end, mid-process, back-end, and packaging. Learn how it fits into Japan's semiconductor revival alongside Rapidus and competes with U.S. and EU chip strategies.
Rapidus CTO Kazunari Ishimaru says Japan's startup chipmaker aims to close the technology gap with TSMC to just six months at the 1nm generation. We analyze Rapidus' 2nm mass production timeline, IBM partnership, Hokkaido fab progress, $19B in government backing, and Japan's chances of rejoining the cutting-edge semiconductor race.
Shinko Electric Industries is entering the photonic-electronic convergence manufacturing market as an OSAT, targeting CPO projects that TSMC won't take. With expertise in advanced packaging and optical alignment, this Japanese company aims to become the go-to manufacturer for Co-Packaged Optics — the technology set to slash AI data center power consumption by half. We break down the CPO race, NTT's IOWN initiative, and why NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD are all betting on light.