2009 Volume 78 Issue 9 Pages 878-881
The Japanese semiconductor industry has been in decline for many years. Consortia and national projects don’t seem to contribute significantly to improving the industry. The achievement of R&D is not poor, but R&D isn’t particularly relevant to difficulties that the industry is facing. The biggest concern of the semiconductor industry is the continuous need to reduce costs rather than to develop cutting edge technology for achieving high performance devices. There are two choices : to develop technology to fabricate semiconductors at an extremely low cost, or to research basic science in preparation for the next generation of semiconductors after Si LSI.
