抄録
Companies that have success in the product of modular architecture, easily to get stuck in “The Modularity Trap”. What are the factors for next successful innovation for these companies? This paper follows the transition of the product architecture of semiconductor exposure tools which have large scale complexity. Semiconductor exposure tool is the ultimate integrative type of product as typified by the automobile. According to previous discussions represented by Fujimoto (2001), Japanese companies have strong points of making integral architecture product by utilizing much knowledge beyond the boundary of companies and integrated human resources. In fact, a Japanese exposure manufacture, Nikon had attained around 50% market share until the mid-1990s by leveraging overwhelming technological innovation capability. However, Nikon have been caught up by ASML (a Dutch company), which entered the market later. In this paper, we compare ASML succeeding in innovation despite its modular architecture with Nikon not succeeding in innovation despite integral architecture.
