Japan's new crystal circle foundry factory Rapidus accelerated its pace in the 2-nanometer competition, announced that it has received support from major U.S. customers, and revealed that more manufacturers are waiting for cooperation. Rapidus i...
Japan's new crystal circle foundry factory Rapidus accelerated its pace in the 2-nanometer competition, announced that it has received support from major U.S. customers, and revealed that more manufacturers are waiting for cooperation. Rapidus is committed to mass-producing the next generation of semiconductors in the Thousand-year-old Hokkaido, with the goal of competing with industry leaders such as Telco, Samsung and Intel in the world's leading production field.
According to Wccftech, Rapidus President Atsuyoshi Koike recently announced that several major American companies have shown great interest in the Rapidus process. Starting in 2026, the company will consider the production of customer product prototypes of several American companies. Among potential partners, IBM and semiconductor design company Tenstorrent are in the lead position, and it does not rule out the possibility of signing contracts with other companies.
Among the American companies interested in Rapidus 2 nanometers, IBM is a long-term partner, continuing to support packaging and research and development, and is undoubtedly the first batch of major adopters. Tenstorrent joins viewing a revitalizing development.
Tenstorrent is one of the pioneering companies that establish a broad artificial intelligence (AI) product portfolio with the RISC-V architecture as the core. Jim Keller, the company's executive director, enjoys a prestigious reputation in semiconductor industry. He has held high-level positions at Intel and Ultramicro (AMD), and helped AMD turn its back on low files and further threaten Intel's leading position. Jim Keller is known for making different and reversing common moves. This time, Tenstorrent established potential cooperation with Rapidus, and is also considered a unique strategy.
In addition to the open partners, there are also reports in the market that NVIDIA (NVIDIA) is also studying options to include Rapidus in the supply chain, but this news has not been confirmed yet.
Rapidus is considered one of the most promising companies in the chip industry, with 2nm making great progress. In 2024, the company announced the development of its "2HP" process. According to the details released, Rapidus' 2nm process is expected to be able to drive the N2 process of tyres and better than Intel's Intel 18A process, showing that Rapidus is highly competitive and delivered to Customer Process Design Kits (PDKs) in the first quarter of 2026.
According to the timeline, Rapidus production will be even earlier than the TINA and Intel time points by the end of 2026 or early 2027. Despite the tight schedule, Rapidus' primary task is to ensure product performance and maturity.
