Abstract:
Rapidus, a chip manufacturer supported by the Japanese government, is stepping up its efforts to build a customer design support system and strives to launch 2-nanometer chip foundry mass production in the second half of fiscal year 2027. The company announced on October 5 that it has established a "design solution partner" team composed of 17 chip design-related companies around the world, including chip design software vendors Synopsys, Cadence, and service companies such as Infosys and Wipro to help customers start chip design for the Rapidus process earlier.
What these companies provide are design resources and professional technology to help Rapidus introduce customers into its own manufacturing ecosystem from the design stage, which is not the same as having signed a foundry order. Market analysts pointed out that the cooperation will help to supplement design services, but it cannot yet prove that Rapidus has obtained substantial commercial orders; the company still needs to convince customers to hand over the chips to a new factory that has not yet achieved mass production.
Rapidus CEO Junyi Koike said that the market demand for advanced chips is sufficient to accommodate new manufacturers, and "one or two companies are far from enough." However, some potential customers are still cautious about transferring orders: If Rapidus fails to stabilize production, customers are worried that it will be difficult to regain TSMC's production capacity by then. Analysts believe that Rapidus may attract customers with smaller orders or lower priority in TSMC's production scheduling, and may also help companies spread supply chain risks, but its yield, cost and continued stable operation capabilities remain to be verified.
Rapidus was established in 2022 with the goal of relying on the IIM-1 factory in Chitose City, Hokkaido, to use the 2-nanometer gate-around (GAA) transistor process to manufacture for customers. The company stated that the factory trial production line will be operational from April 2025, and has verified 2-nanometer GAA transistors on 300 mm wafers, and provided pre-release process design kits (PDK) to early customers; in the next stage, the manufacturing process will be improved, the yield rate will be improved, and a rapid production system for mass production will be established. The company's goal is to start mass production in the second half of Japan's fiscal year 2027, that is, from October 2027 to March 2028.
Reuters reports that the Japanese government’s support of approximately US$15 billion is mainly for long-term assistance for the Rapidus R&D project, and is not a single equity financing of the same amount. After Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry added 631.5 billion yen in R&D support in April this year, the cumulative R&D assistance reached 2.354 trillion yen. In February this year, Rapidus disclosed a mixed financing of 267.6 billion yen, including an investment of 100 billion yen from government agencies and a total of 167.6 billion yen from 32 companies. In June, it received an additional 150 billion yen capital injection from government agencies. Different figures represent different funding calibers such as R&D assistance and capital financing.
Rapidus faces competitors including TSMC, Samsung and Intel. Samsung has started producing 2-nanometer chips in 2025, and TSMC has dominated the advanced process market with years of process accumulation; Reuters pointed out that the global market share of Japan's semiconductor industry has dropped from about 50% in the 1980s to less than 10% today. Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae's government hopes to use Rapidus to rebuild local advanced chip manufacturing capabilities, but whether it can win enough customers before mass production is still an important test for the success of this national investment.
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