Kyocera, a major Japanese electronic parts manufacturer, announced that it will expand investment in the semiconductor industry. It is expected that in the three fiscal years from 2023 to March 2026, the total capital investment and R&D expenditure will increase to 1.3 trillion yen (about 9.8 billion US dollars), For the construction of manufacturing facilities and semiconductor-related product development; compared with the investment amount in the previous three years until March 2023, it has approximately tripled.
Kyocera will expand investment in semiconductor production and related businesses. In order to raise funds, the Japanese electronic parts manufacturer also pledged the shares of KDDI Telecom Company as collateral for the first time, and borrowed up to 1 trillion yen at the same time. Kyocera holds 15 percent of KDDI's outstanding shares, with a market capitalization of about 1.35 trillion yen. The controlling stake dates back to Kyocera founder Kazuo Inamori's 1984 launch of Daini-Denden, now KDDI.
KDDI shares have never been pledged before, but the company will start borrowing in the current fiscal year ending March 2023 and increase borrowing to a maximum of 500 billion yen in the fiscal year ending March 2026.
Kyocera expects the chip market to expand in the medium term, so while maintaining a debt-free management policy, it will actively invest in semiconductors, including ceramic components; doubled, while R&D expenditure increased to 400 billion yen, an increase of about 60%.
In Kagoshima Prefecture in southern Japan, Kyocera is investing about 60 billion yen in building a new semiconductor packaging production facility. The company is building its first new domestic plant in Nagasaki in about 20 years since the Ayabe plant in Kyoto began operations. Tanimoto said the company plans to "invest up to 100 billion yen in the production of ceramic components and semiconductor packages" and that the new plant will start operating in 2026. The area is close to other chip factories such as the Sony Group, and is close to highway interchanges and other transportation infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Kyocera is expanding a factory in Vietnam that produces multifunctional machines and quartz components.
New Investments and New Technologies
Kyocera has developed a thin-film process technology for the manufacture of silicon substrates for GaN-based micro-light sources (light sources with a side length of less than 100 microns). Examples include short cavity lasers and micro LEDs.
Due to their key performance advantages, such as higher clarity, smaller size, and lighter weight, micro-light sources are considered essential for next-generation automotive displays, wearable smart glasses, communication devices, and medical devices.
The market for Micro-LED chips alone is expected to reach $2.7 billion by 2026—a compound annual growth rate of approximately 241%. GaN-based light source devices, including micro-LEDs and lasers, are typically fabricated on sapphire and GaN substrates.
The traditional process involves forming thin GaN device layers for light sources directly on sapphire substrates by heating them to high temperatures (1,000 degrees Celsius or more) in a controlled gas atmosphere.
The device layer must then be removed, or "stripped," from the substrate to create a GaN-based microlight source device.
Despite the increasing demand for smaller devices, three separate challenges threaten the process' ability to meet miniaturization goals in the near future:
1. It is difficult to peel off the device layer
In the case of micro-LEDs, current processes require difficult steps to divide the device layer into individual light sources on the substrate; then, the device layer is separated (or "lifted off") from the substrate. As devices become smaller, the technical challenges of this stripping process can lead to unacceptably low yields.
2. High defect density and unstable quality
Fabrication of microlight sources is also problematic because the device layers must be deposited on sapphire, silicon, or other materials that have a different crystal structure than the device layers. This creates high defect densities and inherent quality control challenges.
3. High manufacturing cost
GaN and sapphire substrates are very expensive materials. Although silicon substrates cost less than sapphire, it is extremely difficult to separate the device layers from the silicon substrate.
New process developed by Kyocera
The new process technology was successfully developed at Kyocera's Advanced Materials and Devices Research Institute in Kyoto, Japan. First, a layer of GaN is grown on a silicon substrate, which can be mass-produced at low cost. The GaN layer is then masked with a non-growth material with an opening in the center. Later, when the GaN layer is formed on the Si substrate, GaN nuclei grow over the openings of the mask.
The GaN layer is the growth nucleus and has many defects in the early stages of growth; but by forming the GaN layer laterally, a high-quality GaN layer with low defect density can be created, and devices can be successfully fabricated from this low-defect region of the GaN layer.
Advantages of Kyocera New Process
1. Easier to lift off GaN device layers
Masking the GaN layer with a material that does not grow suppresses the bonding between the Si substrate and the GaN layer, greatly simplifying the lift-off process.
2. High-quality GaN device layers with low defect density
Because Kyocera's process can deposit low-defect GaN over a wider area than before, it can consistently fabricate high-quality device layers.
3. Reduce manufacturing costs
Kyocera's new method facilitates the successful and reliable separation of GaN device layers from relatively inexpensive Si substrates, which should significantly reduce manufacturing costs. Autonomous driving will create demand for brighter, clearer, more power-efficient, more transparent and lower-cost displays. Smart glasses and other products are being developed to facilitate the creation of virtual spaces through virtual worlds in VR and "go-smartphones" in AR.
Conventional AR semiconductor lasers have been miniaturized to a length of only 300 microns, and Kyocera is the first company in the world to achieve a size of 100 microns.
It can achieve this size by developing a completely new production process, which is an evolution of the cutting method. This so-called "novel cutting method" enables a size reduction of about 67 percent and helps minimize power consumption. Semiconductor lasers with lower power consumption can reduce the size and weight of batteries, thereby improving fitability. Kyocera will provide a wide range of platforms, substrates and process technologies to bring high-quality, low-cost micro-light sources to the market in the near future.
