EV demand expands Japanese wafer foundry JS Foundry plans to expand production capacity to 2.5 times

According to the Nikkei news report, due to the increase in demand from electric vehicles (EV) and renewable energy, JS Foundry, a Japanese wafer foundry company, plans to expand its production capacity to 2.5 times the current capacity.

Kenaki Okada, president of JS Foundry, said recently that in order to cope with the expansion of demand from EV and renewable energy, it plans to expand the production capacity of power semiconductors/analog chips to 2.5 times the current capacity by the end of 2027, and pointed out that it has cooperated with two Chinese companies and Six Japanese companies launched specific negotiations, "customers asked us to speed up the supply."

It is reported that after the Japanese fund Mercuria Investment and the merger and acquisition consulting company Sangyo Sosei Advisory acquired the Niigata factory of ON Semiconductor, they established JS Foundry on December 1, 2022. To ensure continued supply to existing customers, ON Semiconductor has entered into a wafer supply agreement with the new owner. Currently, JS Foundry's Niigata plant production line mainly produces 6-inch wafers, and plans to set up an 8-inch wafer production line later.

Kenaki Okada said that he "hopes to strengthen the Japanese supply chain", and in order to expand production bases in the future, he will consider acquiring existing semiconductor factories in Japan.

Affected by factors such as geopolitics and the epidemic, Japan has also been laying out the local semiconductor industry chain. Not long ago, the Japanese government announced it would invest 70 billion yen ($493 million) in Rapidus, joining eight corporate backers to develop 2nm chips. In addition, Rapidus will cooperate with IBM and a Japanese research institution to jointly develop next-generation chip technology.