The Japanese government allocated 192 billion yen in subsidies to US memory maker Micron. This amounts to more than 1.2 billion euros. Thus, the chip manufacturer could expand its existing factory in Hiroshima, including the use of UV machines.

Japan wants to produce more advanced chips within its borders, thus offering support to Micron. He writes for Bloomberg News. Japanese Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said that thanks to this support, the chip factory in Hiroshima can be equipped with UV lithography machines from the Dutch company ASML. The €1.22 billion support represents about 40 percent of Micron’s new investments in Japan; The chip maker wants to invest 500 billion yen in its activities in that country.

The Japanese government has been talking about additional investments in the domestic chip sector for some time. The company wants to allocate billions in the coming years to boost chip production in the country. For example, TSMC is building a chip factory in Japan in cooperation with Sony. These companies will receive support amounting to 2.9 billion euros for this purpose.

The country is also providing support to Rapidus, a brand-new chipmaker created by Sony, NEC, Toyota, Kioxia and others. Rapidus should be able to produce 2nm chips around the end of this decade, and it is working with imec and IBM, among others, to make that happen. The chipmaker then wants to maintain the foundry model, through which it will only produce chips for other companies, just like TSMC, for example.

Japan is following the lead of the United States and the European Union, among other countries, which are investing tens of billions in their chip sectors. Countries do this partly because of increasing geopolitical tensions, and thus want to become less dependent on other countries and regions.