TOKYO – Mitsubishi Chemical will build a new plant in Taiwan next year to bring the source of semiconductor fabrics to life for Taiwanese producers, Nikkei learned on Monday, the latest example of Japanese corporations to meet the development call for 5G Internet services.
The resolution also reflects an effort by Japanese corporations to retain the percentage of the market that has begun to attract Chinese and South Korean rivals.
The new plant, which will be built next to Mitsubishi’s existing facilities in the city of Hsinchu, will produce a solution to remove debris and other impurities from silicon wafers and develop the company’s ability to manufacture a 50% cleaning solution.
Mitsubishi Chemical has not disclosed the amount of the investment, but is expected to exceed one billion yen ($9.4 million). The product will be provided to chip manufacturers, adding Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.
TSMC manufactures chips in Taiwan, while maintaining production facilities in China.
Japan has wasted a lot of time to Taiwanese and South Koreans in semiconductor chip production, but remains a major player in the fabric industry for the production of key devices. Advanced semiconductor chips require fabrics, which can only be produced through corporations with complicated technology.
Japanese corporations are also smart to assemble other specifications for other customers. Investment in Taiwan also reflects Mitsubishi’s efforts to be dragged into the escalation of industrial disputes between the United States and China.
Other Japanese corporations moving to Taiwan come with Hitachi Chemical, which invested 7.5 billion yen to build a circuit board fabric plant. The plant has recently started operating.
Mitsui Chemicals also invested five billion yen to build a new plant in Kaohsiung City for the manufacture of resin strips used in semiconductor production. The facility was launched in January, expanding the company’s production capacity by five percent.
Japanese brands dominate in the production of semiconductor tissues such as photosensitive resin, which is used to create a circuit trend in semiconductor substrate, natural gases and wafers.
Japanese companies, which add Idemitsu Kosan and Sumitomo Chemical, would get 40% of the curtains used in high-end OLED displays, which Apple has to adopt for its next-generation smartphones.
But Chinese and South Korean brands are temporarily catching up. State-owned China Chemical has invested heavily in a subsidiary to build a special fuel production plant for semiconductor production next year.
China and South Korea help domestic semiconductor fabric production to expand their own semiconductor industries.
The global rush to invest in semiconductors also reflects the growing demand for PC chips, i.e. those used in cellular communications, as more and more people have started running from home to coronavirus infection.
Asian countries lead investments in next-generation 5G communications infrastructure.
The global semiconductor market is expected to grow by 9.7% to $452.2 billion in 2021 starting in 2019, according to global semiconductor industry statistics.
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