Electronics Weekly Electronics Design & Components Tech News
Earlier today Rapidus, the Japanese government-backed chip company, said it will build a $36.7 billion 2nm logic fab at Chitose City in Hokkaido Prefecture.
The decision was announced by Rapidus President Koike Atsuyoshi (pictured) and the Governor of Hokkaido, Suzuki Naomichi. 
The fab will mass-produce 2nm ICs starting in 2027. Rapidus will develop the chips with IBM.
“We aim to produce semiconductors made in Japan that contribute to the world,” said Koike, “we decided that Hokkaido is the best place to achieve that.”
“The effect of the factory construction in terms of investment and employment is expected to be a huge.,” said Suzuki. “This will be one of the biggest projects so far for Hokkaido, so we would like to move firmly forward.”
Chitose City is 36 kilometers southeast of Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido and near the port of Tomakomai.
The fab will be built in an industrial park close to automotive industry factories and a major airport.
Rapidus chairman Tetsuro Higashi says that the whole project of getting 2nm ICs into production will cost $54 billion.
Rapidus says the fab may eventually expand to about 100 hectares.
Rapidus is backed by Denso, Kioxia, MUFG Bank, NEC, NTT, SoftBank, Sony, and Toyota.
At least everybody is being realistic up front about how much advanced fabs now cost. The EU would probably expect it to be done for $5bn, and the UK for a few million.
Ha Ha. How very true Mike. These people calling for a strategy to make the UK independent of Asian manufacturing probably think a leading edge fab costs millions.
Well that’s how much a fab cost in the late 80s and they’ve heard semiconductors cost the same as back then 🙂
Ha Ha. Or maybe they think Newport Wafer Fab is a 2nm fab.
Government management is the kiss of death for a business.
One of the two organisations which set up TSMC was the Taiwan government, FE. More like the kiss of life, I’d say.
Just to mix my metaphors, TSMC is the ugly duckling who found her handsome prince. Apple financed expansion of TSMC in return for a guaranteed supply of leading edge cell phone chips. TSMC has a guaranteed customer and Apple has a guaranteed supply.
There are no shortages of handsome princes for Rapidus among the Japanese electronics companies, FE