Old Semiconductor War
Wealth meant agricultural products and domestic animals.
Then wealth and value were found in Gold and Silver. But mankind discovered wealth in electric and electronic products in the middle of the 20th century. Accordingly Japan and the US came to keenly compete with each other in the late 20th century.
A brief history of the semiconductor industry over the Pacific Ocean is as follows:
1947 - US Bell Laboratory invents a transistor.
1949 - Study on transistors starts in Japan.
1955 - Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (currently Sony) launches a sale of its first transistor radio.
1958 - US Texas Instruments invents an Integrated Circuit (IC) consisting of several transistors in a form of a chip.
1959 - Japan becomes the largest producer of germanium transistor radio receivers.
1964 - Hayakawa Denki Kogyo (currently Sharp) starts to ship desktop electric calculators.
1971 - US Intel develops a microprocessor.
1975 - Den-Den Ko-sya (currently NTT) and Japanese makers start to develop an ultra Large-Scale IC (LSI) consisting of tens of thousands of transistors in a form of a chip.
1976 - The Japanese Government organizes an industrial association to develop ultra LSIs with Japanese manufacturers.
1980 - The share of Japanese businesses in the global DRAM market has sharply increased.
1985 - Nippon Electric Company (currently NEC) becomes the world No.1 semiconductor maker, replacing US Intel.
In this way Japan became the world leading country in the semiconductor field by 1990.
Semiconductor Production Share Ranking in 1990
No. Company Nationality
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1 NEC JAPAN
2 Toshiba JAPAN
3 Motorola US
4 Hitachi JAPAN
5 Intel US
6 Fujitsu JAPAN
7 Texas Instruments US
8 Mitsubishi JAPAN
9 Phillips Netherlands
10 Matsushita (Panasonic) JAPAN
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However, 20 years later the situation has changed drastically with Japanese getting stuck in the mire.
Semiconductor Production Share Ranking in 2012
No. Company Nationality
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1 Intel US
2 Samsung S. Korea
3 Qualcomm US
4 Toshiba JAPAN
5 Renesas JAPAN
6 HYNIX S.Korea
7 STMicroelectronics Switzerland
8 Broadcom US
9 Micron US
10 Sony JAPAN
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Of course those South Korean makers, such as Samsung and HYNIX, rely on Japanese engineers they have recruited from Japanese companies. In fact in 1990s, Korean manufactures started to recruit a large number of Japanese engineers who lost hope of or expectation in further career progress in Japanese companies.
Nonetheless, according to data of World Intellectual Property Organization, patent applications based on the Patent Cooperation Treaty shows strength of Japan in overall industries.
Patent Cooperaion Treaty International Applications – Top 15 countries
RANKING COUNTRY 2010 2011 EST. 2011 SHARE 2011 GROWTH
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1 USA 45'008 48'596 26.7% 8.0%
2 Japan 32'150 38'888 21.4% 21.0%
3 Germany 17'568 18'568 10.2% 5.7%
4 China 12'296 16'406 9.0% 33.4%
5 South Korea 9'669 10'447 5.7% 8.0%
6 France 6'560 7'664 4.2% 5.8%
7 United Kingdom 4'891 4'844 2.7% -1.0%
8 Switzerland 3'728 3'999 2.2% 7.3%
9 Netherlands 4'063 3'494 1.9% -14.0%
10 Sweden 3'314 3'466 1.9% 4.6%
11 Canada 2'698 2'923 1.6% 8.3%
12 Italy 2'658 2'671 1.5% 0.5%
13 Finland 2'138 2'080 1.1% -2.7%
14 Australia 1'772 1'740 1.0% -1.8%
15 Spain 1'772 1'725 0.9% -2.7%
All Others 13'346 14'389 7.9% 7.8%
Total 164'316 181'900 10.7%
(by WIPO)
http://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2012/article_0001.html
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As for China, it is well known that Chinese businesses have been engaged in illegal acquisition or violation of Japanese patents, designs, copyrights, and trademarks in a large scale in these decades. One reports tells that Japan loses $30 billion every year in the Chinese market due to patent piracy conducted by Chinese companies.
When Japan, namely Sony, first imported US semiconductor patents, a fair amount of money was paid to US companies and reasonable contracts were concluded between Japanese makers and US makers. So, it was a kind of fair industrial war. But South Korea and China have obtained Japanese technologies through very biased, dubious, and apparently illegal channels.
Indeed before the 2001 terror attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, the world looked more decent in terms of industrial war between Japan and America.
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Mar 8:27 And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am?
Mar 8:28 And they answered, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets.
Mar 8:29 And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ.
Mar 8:30 And he charged them that they should tell no man of him.