Abstract
The competitiveness of Japan's semiconductor industry fell sharply in the latter half of the 1990s. This paper attempts to explore structural factors behind this by focusing particularly on production systems. In doing so, special attention is paid to the rapid increase in complexity of technologies and markets, a phenomenon brought about by the “self-propagating” evolution of information technologies of the semiconductor industry's own making. Such an increase in complexity calls for highly specialized knowledge⁄know-how. At the same time, it is necessary to create a mechanism for combining such knowledge⁄know-how so as to ensure its cumulative and agile generation in an integral form. Japan's semiconductor industry, however, has yet to create such a mechanism for its production system. This paper attempts to identify factors behind this and find clues toward solving the problem.
