14The raw material for semiconductors is silicon. Do you know what silicon is made from? It’s actually made from sand (silica rock). It can be found all over the world. In this sense, it’s a demo-cratic material, distributed equally around the world. And if you look at the semiconductor manufacturing process, you could almost say it’s a technology that anyone can master. Applications for semiconductors used to be extremely limited, restricted largely to computers and electronic devices. Now, they’re used in things we encounter in all aspects of our lives, the obvious example being smartphones. Semiconductors are what make it possible to heat up the water in our bathtub with just a press of a button, and what keep our toilet seat at the appropriate tem-perature. What surprised me recently when I went to shop for some clothes was that the store had a system that instantly reads the items still in my shopping basket. This is made possible by the semiconductor chips found inside the price tag. In this way, the range of applications for semiconductors has been constantly expanding. Demand for semiconductors is projected to continue growing.There was a period of semiconductor shortage up until 2022, which prompted companies to increase their production. As a result, we currently have an oversupply. This characteristic of the semiconductor industry has been dubbed the silicon cycle, refer-ring to the recurring cycle of overproduction and undersupply of semiconductors. But if you look closely at the overall produc-tion trends and ignore the individual peaks and troughs, you find that the supply and demand have continued to rise. Even when people say the semiconductor industry is in a slump this year, the trough is still above the peak of the previous cycle. This means, despite the ups and downs, the industry has continued to grow. Semiconductors represent a growth industry, with no limit currently in sight. This is the major characteristic of the semiconductor industry.If you look at graphs of semiconductor statistics, you’ll see global production has been on the rise, while Japan’s has been flat. As expected, past misjudgments have been a major factor in the stagnation of the domestic semiconductor industry. By failing to place sufficient value on semiconductors, Japan ended up falling behind the rest of the world. Of course, the Japan-US semiconductor war at the government level also had an impact. But what had an even bigger impact was the attitude that “semi-conductors have no future—so let’s give up.” This has permeated the industry over the past 30 years. Until just five or six years ago, you would often hear students at top universities saying semi-conductors were a declining industry, something to be avoided as a career. Now, it’s evident that semiconductors support the world’s industries and economies and that the semiconductor industry holds significant power. It’s a shame Japan failed to see this.In the last couple of years, more and more people have come to realize that we need to make semiconductors ourselves. We’re now seeing some efforts to establish chip factories in Japan. One example is a new company called Rapidus Corporation, estab-lished in 2022. Eight major Japanese companies, Sony, Toyota, Denso, Kioxia, NTT, NEC, SoftBank, and Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, have invested in the company. The Japanese government has also contributed 70 billion yen to its development funds. I think what Japan has fallen behind the rest of the world, but the momentum for recovery is growingThe semiconductor market will definitely continue to expandInterview and article by Ryosuke Kobayashi Kenji Tsuda International technology journalist. After graduating from the Department of Applied Physics, Faculty of Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, he joined NEC Corporation. After working in the development of semiconductor devices, he joined Nikkei BP. Over the years, he has served as a reporter, deputy edi-tor-in-chief, and head of the international division for Nikkei Electronics, Nikkei Microdevices, and the English-language magazine Nikkei Electronics Asia. He has been following the semiconductor industry for over 30 years and has made various proposals to the industry in books and lectures based on his expertise.A New ProjectIn this new feature, we’ll hear from experts about the trends in industries on which Rion is focusing or to which Rion’s products are contributing.In this issue, we spoke to Mr. Kenji Tsuda, a journalist, about the present and future of the semiconductor industry.We asked him about the ideal relationship we can build between the semiconductor industry and Rionthrough particle counters that contribute to clean environments at semiconductor manufacturing sites.Latest Industry Trends Explained by ExpertsThe Present and Future of the Semiconductor IndustryUTLOOKING!
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