Sony Semiconductor Manufacturing which has the world’s largest global market share in image sensors has shipped more than 20 billion sensors to date, says a top executive at the company.

Yoshihiro Yamaguchi, president of Sony Semiconductor Manufacturing, told Japan’s Nikkei newspaper that the company is also building a new plant in Japan’s Kumamoto prefecture.

Yamaguchi says that the company hit the 10 billion mark in May 2019, and then in just five years has doubled that figure.

He attributes that dramatic jump to the use of its sensors in mobile phones. Not only have the number of mobile phones being produced increase, but each phone also featured multiple cameras.

Apple, for example, is believed to be using Sony’s sensors in its cameras. Apple is closing 2024 with a 27.7% smartphone market share, 4.5% more than rival Samsung, according to data from Stocklytics.com.

Sony has four facilities in Kyushu, Japan. He says that there are not going to be any major changes at each facility, but “Nagasaki, Oita and Kumamoto are handling 300-millimeter wafers, and Kagoshima is using 200-mm wafers to produce unique devices, mainly analog large-scale integrated circuits.”

“In Kyushu, image sensor production is centered in Nagasaki, Kumamoto and Oita. Kumamoto is also producing devices for automotive and other growth areas. Nagasaki and Oita are producing sensors for mobile devices.”

Construction has begun on a new factory in Kumamoto prefecture. He says that the new factory will likely first produce image sensors for mobile devices which is the company’s current focus, handling overflow from the factory in Isahaya, Nagasaki prefecture.

 

Beyond mobile devices, Yamaguchi forecasts growth in demand for image sensors coming from areas including in-vehicle devices, smart factories, smart ICT [information and communication technology] cameras, as well as semiconductor laser devices used in peripheral displays and data centers.

In February this year, TSMC, Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation, DENSO Corporation and Toyota Motor Corporation announced a further investment into Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM), TSMC’s majority-owned manufacturing subsidiary in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, to build a second fab, which is scheduled to begin operation by the end of the 2027 calendar year.

Together with JASM’s first fab, the overall investment in JASM will exceed US$20 billion (A$32.18 billion) with strong support from the Japanese government.

“We are progressing smoothly with our evaluation of the process of stacking logic semiconductors made by TSMC and JASM [Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing, the TSMC subsidiary that operates the Kumamoto plant] to produce finished CMOS image sensors at our facility,” says Yamaguchi.

“From the perspective of strengthening the supply chain, having a place nearby that can supply logic chip wafers can offer peace of mind when various risks arise. To prepare for risks, we plan to be in a position where we can receive wafers from JASM at any time.”

As ChannelNews reported earlier this year, major Japanese companies including Sony Group and Mitsubishi Electric are outlining plans to spend around A$53.52 billion (5 trillion yen) in semiconductor production before the end of this decade.

That figure represents the capital investment from 2021 until 2029 by eight Japanese chipmakers including Sony Group, Mitsubishi Electric, Rohm, Toshiba, Kioxia Holdings, Renesas Electronics, Rapidus and Fuji Electric.