IBM announced on Tuesday that it is collaborating with Rapidus, a recently established chip manufacturer supported by the Japanese government, to help it produce the most cutting-edge chips currently on the market.
Japan, which has long since lost its competitive edge in chip production, is currently racing to catch up in order to ensure that its automakers and IT firms never run out of the essential component.
At a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday morning, Rapidus executives and Dario Gil, SVP and Director of Research at IBM, shared the news.
"Japan has enormous strengths already in the semiconductor industry and from the perspective of materials and equipment are global leaders in that space," he told Reuters ahead of the announcement. "The engineering and scientific expertise that is in Japan and this network of suppliers and partners around that is very rich and strong."
Rapidus will deploy engineers to the IBM Research facility in the Albany, New York NanoTech Complex to work with IBM Research engineers while learning the 2 nanometer (nm) process.
The semiconductor industry currently uses the term "nanometer," or one billionth of a meter, to describe a specific technology rather than a measurement. In general, a chip is more advanced the lower the number before the word "nanometer,"
There is already a sizable research team at IBM Research in Japan. The Albany NanoTech Complex is owned and run by New York State, which also benefits greatly from this partnership. This development agency is known as "NY CREATES."
Rapidus and IBM will work together to develop the Leading-edge Semiconductor Technology Center (LSTC) in Japan.
While Rapidus will be the manufacturing company, LSTC will operate as the overarching coordinator of all active semiconductor research.
The announcement comes at a time when tensions between the U.S. and China are still high, particularly over semiconductors. Washington recently limited Beijing's access to cutting-edge semiconductor technology.
Japan announced last month that it would make an initial investment of 70 billion yen ($500 million) in Rapidus. In the world of chip production, where plants can cost tens of billions of dollars to develop, that may not seem like much, but sources claim additional investments are on the way.
IBM reinforces its role as a global resource for semiconductor research and development with this announcement and its extended cooperation with Samsung. Rapidus, with IBM's assistance, has the potential to revitalize the Japanese semiconductor industry and diversify global advanced semiconductor manufacturing.
