Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and other related companies would add ￥11.2 trillion (US$78.31 billion) to Japan’s chipmaking hot spot Kumamoto Prefecture over the next decade, a local bank’s analysis said.
Kyushu Financial Group, a lender based in Kumamoto’s capital, almost doubled its projection for the economic impact that the chip sector would bring to the region compared to its estimate a year earlier, a presentation on Thursday said.
The bank said that 171 firms had made new investments since November 2021, up from 90 in an earlier analysis.
Photo: EPA-EFE
TSMC’s Kumamoto location was once a sleepy farming area, but has undergone rapid growth as part of Japan’s chipmaking ambitions. TSMC, which opened its first plant there in February, is to start building a second by the end of the year and has shown intentions to construct a third.
The local economy is racing to keep up, with skyrocketing land prices and new infrastructure planned to deal with congestion from an influx of industry personnel. Kumamoto’s growth spurt has been supported by generous government subsidies, including grants totaling about ￥1.1 trillion for TSMC’s two plants to date.
Cooperation between Taiwan and Japan is increasingly crucial as supply chains become shorter and more regionally focused, a compound semiconductor company chairman said yesterday at a Taiwan-Japan exchange forum.
The global division of labor has been disrupted by the US-China trade and technology war, WIN Semiconductors Corp (穩懋) chairman Dennis Chen (陳進財) said.
“We have come to a point where there is no turning back, no matter who wins the presidency [in the next US presidential election],” he said during Semicon Taiwan.
However, localizing semiconductor manufacturing — widely regarded as a strategic resource — is easier said than done, as “every country has its specialty following 40 years of [globalized] supply chain development,” Chen said.
Taiwan and Japan are highly complementary in terms of their supply chain division of labor, he said.
“Taiwan is top in foundry and advanced packaging, and Japan leads in materials and equipment,” Chen said, citing Japan’s official numbers showing that it has 48 percent of the semiconductor material global market share and 31 percent of the equipment market share.
The two countries are also geographically and culturally close to each other, especially in terms of attitude toward work, he added.
On top of complementary dominant supply chain positions, Taiwan and Japan are on the side of democracy as “geopolitical changes have divided the world into two camps.”
In this democracy camp, more cooperation with the US, Europe, South Korea and Southeast Asia in forming a new supply chain is expected, he added.
Chen also said that customers in the US have urged his company to implement the “Taiwan plus one” strategy — manufacturing bases outside Taiwan.
In response, Chen said: “I believe Taiwan and Japan can take our cooperation to another level as we are natural partners in the industry.”
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
RSS