Domestic fund buys Japanese onsemi fab

Onsemi announced back in 2020 that is was exploring the sale of its foundry facility in Niigata, Japan – as part of the company’s plan to optimise its manufacturing footprint and sharpen its focus on highly differentiated power, analog and sensor products.

The US company first got its hands on the Niigata fab back in 2011 when it acquired SANYO Semiconductor. According to information on onsemi’s website, the Niigata operations consists of two co-located wafer fabs with 215,000 square feet of clean room space, located on a 40 acre campus with 1.1 million square feet of building space. Production mainly centres around 0.3 µm to 2 µm CMOS, BiCMOS, BCD, bipolar, and discrete technologies.

Careful consideration has been given to the selection of the buyer, as the foundry is responsible for supplying analog and power semiconductors, which are indispensable for various industries, including automotive. Mercuria Investment states in a press release that an agreement has been reached and that onsemi has found a buyer for the Niigata fab in the Japanese collective. 

While the official statement from Mercuria Investment does not mention any transaction price, Nikkei Asia reports that the purchase – and the capital spending on equipment upgrade – is expected to top JPY20 billion (USD 135 million). The plant is also expected to maintain its current staff of about 600.

“This purchase addresses the market demand and customer needs. It establishes Japan’s first independent specialty semiconductor foundry,” Mercuria Investment writes in the press release.

The investment firm says that the fund, as a whole, will continuously focus on strengthening the international competitiveness in the area of analog and power semiconductor manufacturing.

Following the acquisition, the fab will continue to operate as JS Foundry K.K. (JSF), the company succeeding the business of onsemi Niigata.