Shin-Etsu to build semiconductor materials plant in Japan
Industrial giant Shin-Etsu Chemical has confirmed it will invest $547 million in a new facility at Isesaki in Japan's Gunma Prefecture.
The plant will make photoresists, including the extreme ultraviolet resists that are used in the most advanced chips. Construction of the 150,000 m2 factory is expected to be complete by 2026. It will be the company's first new domestic production base since the opening of its Kamisu plant in 1970.
Japanese companies lead the world in supplying the minerals and raw materials that go into semiconductor production. Shin-Etsu Chemical is among the world's leading makers of photoresists and silicon wafers, which it currently makes at its plants in Niigata and Fukui, and in Taiwan.
Shin-Etsu launched its photoresists business in 1997. Since then, it has developed semiconductor lithography materials such as photomask blanks, ArF photoresists, multilayer materials, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) resists and more. It established the second production base in Fukui Prefecture in 2016 and the third production base in Yunlin County in the western part of Taiwan in 2019.
