Hitachi Manufacturing Co., Ltd. recently held a general meeting of shareholders. President Keiji Kojima denied the possibility of investing in the next-generation semiconductor manufacturer Rapidas, but said that he would cooperate in improving production efficiency and other aspects.
▲ Source: Hitachi
Hitachi stated at the shareholder meeting that, rather than providing financial support to Rapidus, Hitachi hopes to cooperate closely with Rapidus in areas such as manufacturing and inspection equipment. Hitachi will provide Rapidus with Hitachi’s products, such as semiconductor manufacturing equipment and technology, to help Rapidus improve advanced semiconductor processes and manufacturing processes.
Hitachi pointed out that not only Rapidus, Hitachi is willing to cooperate with all manufacturers that increase investment in the semiconductor field in Japan. According to reports, Rapidus is a foundry service provider headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo. It was established in August 2022 with the support of eight companies including Sony, Kioxia and Toyota. Its goal is to build a 2nm test line in 2025. Production line and mass production in 2027.
It is noticed that Hitachi High-tech, a subsidiary of Hitachi, is the ninth largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer in the world, and its products include dry etching systems, CD-SEM and defect inspection equipment.
The history of Hitachi Semiconductor’s business changes as follows:
In 1999, Hitachi Semiconductor merged the memory business into Elpida.
In 2003, Hitachi Semiconductor merged into Renesas Electronics, stopped the research and development of SuperH processor, and its self-developed SH instruction set was inherited by Renesas.
In 2008, the wafer fabrication business was sold to Chartered Semiconductor of Singapore, which was subsequently merged into GlobalFoundries.
In 2010, Hitachi gave up cooperating with IBM to develop 28nm process.
In 2011, Hitachi sold "HGST Hitachi Global Storage", which is in charge of the storage business, to Western Digital for US$4.3 billion.
In 2012, "Hitachi Display," which was in charge of LCD panel manufacturing, was merged into JDI.
In 2019, Showa Denko acquired Hitachi Chemical, which is responsible for semiconductor substrates, packaging materials and battery technology, for 964 billion yen.
In 2020, Hitachi sold its semiconductor business for power equipment to Nantong Jianghai Capacitor.
In 2021, Applied Materials will acquire semiconductor manufacturer Hitachi International Electric for US$3.5 billion.