The Japanese semiconductor corporation Rapidus will supply state-of-the-art 2-nanometer (㎚·10 billionths of a meter) semiconductor prototypes to the American semiconductor corporation Broadcom by June, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) reported on the 8th.
Rapidus is a foundry established at the end of 2022 with investments of 1 billion yen (about 940 million won) each from eight corporations, including Toyota, Sony, Kioxia, NTT, SoftBank, NEC, Denso, and Mitsubishi UFJ Bank. It is constructing a factory in Japan's Hokkaido region, with a minimum of 4 trillion yen (approximately 36.8 trillion won) expected to be invested before mass production begins.
After confirming the performance of Rapidus's 2-nanometer semiconductors, Broadcom plans to entrust the production of semiconductors for data centers to Rapidus. Nikkei evaluated, "If prototype production for major customers is successful, it will take a step further toward commercialization."
Fabless semiconductor design company Broadcom does not develop its own AI chips like NVIDIA, a leader in AI chips. However, there is speculation that it could threaten NVIDIA, which has dominated over 80% of the AI chip market through custom chip development with large information and communication companies.
Accordingly, last month Broadcom's market capitalization exceeded $1 trillion (about 1,460 trillion won) for the first time. Broadcom has strengths in semiconductor design for data centers and has customers like Google and Meta.
By collaborating with Broadcom, Rapidus will be able to supply semiconductors to Broadcom's customers. In addition to Broadcom, Rapidus is also expected to produce 2-nanometer products on consignment from the Japanese startup Preferred Networks.
Additionally, Rapidus is pursuing collaborations with Taiwanese fabless companies Alchip and Unichip. To secure customers, Rapidus is currently negotiating semiconductor contract manufacturing with around 30 to 40 corporations, focusing on emerging companies.