What Should Japan Do About Its Semiconductor Industry?
Japan's semiconductor industry struggles amid global growth. Can AI and policy shifts revive its market share? Analysis on challenges & solutions.
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According to the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS), the global semiconductor market is projected to grow by 19.7% in 2024, maintaining a healthy growth trajectory.
This growth is primarily driven by memory and logic devices, while other semiconductor sectors are experiencing sluggish growth.
This trend continues to persist, with many Japanese semiconductor manufacturers, whose main products are MCUs, analog devices, and discrete components, still struggling.
What will happen if this continues? How far is the current situation from the goals set by the Japanese government?
In this article, I aim to explore "What Japan Should Do" in the context of the current semiconductor market landscape.
A Polarized Global Market: Logic vs. Memory
Figure 1 illustrates the global semiconductor market trends by product category.
Currently, the logic IC market is growing rapidly, followed by the memory market, though the latter is heavily influenced by economic fluctuations.
Other semiconductor products appear to either maintain stable growth or face negative growth, creating a significant gap between the logic IC and memory markets. From 2024 onward, this gap seems likely to widen further.