2017 Volume 24 Issue 1 Pages 7-20
In today’s semiconductor industry, especially in the field of system LSI (Large-Scale Integration) devices, an international division of labor called vertical international specialization has developed. Due to this development, Taiwanese foundries like TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) have risen, their new business model promoting great leaps of amelioration. On the other hand, Japanese IDMs (Integrated Device Manufacturers) that have shifted their main production from DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) to system LSI devices have been sluggish for a long time. TSMC, pushing a vertical specialization forward, strengthened their system coordination between plants and companies. They not only expanded online services, but attracted and retained customers such as fabless companies. On the other hand, it was possible that Japanese IDMs were tied down by the burden of their internal system coordination between not only the wafer fabrication and assembly system, but the cost accounting system as well. Japanese IDMs have been hindered by the many burdens and restrictions that occur from their system coordination problems in carrying out the system LSI businesses. This paper demonstrates that such problems contribute to the critical cause of their difficulties.
