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.”
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
RSS