Japan is a ‘sinking Titanic’ in need of urgent repairs to its high-tech industry structure, said the chief corporate technologist of Hitachi, Dr Tsugio Makimoto, in April 2000.
At that time, Makimoto was heading a think-tank called SNCC (Semiconductors in the New Century Committee) which has initiated an industry consortium to regain competitiveness. Members are: NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Matsushita, Sony, Rohm, Oki and Sanyo.
The first step is the construction of a $165m clean-room in Tsukuba for developing sub-0.10 micron technology, funded by Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). The next step is to decide who pays for equipping it.
“We’ll be discussing this topic in April-June,” said Dr Hajime Sasaki, chairman of NEC, “I expect the industry will put more money into it, but it’s not fixed yet.”
A MITI official said: “There are many options. MITI could fund the equipment, or private companies, or other government agencies, or foreign companies. If Intel and Samsung want to join, that’s OK, no problem.”
The Japanese government has been pumping money into building projects, but there has been no major collaborative semiconductor initiative since the 1980s. “The 1980s VLSI Project had great results,” said Kanji Sugihara, president of NEC’s electron devices company, but since then we haven’t seen any great national project to boost competitiveness.”
“The government spends money on bridges and roads to benefit local people but the semiconductor people are seen as being inside big companies which are rich,” explained Kazunari Shirai, president of Fujitsu’s electron devices group.
