New Japanese Chipmaker Rapidus Launches Subsidiary in US – IT Pro – News

New Japanese chipmaker Rapidus opens subsidiary in US The company wants to recruit and support American customers through that effort. Rapidus aims to produce 2nm chips later this decade at its Japanese factory, which is still under construction.

The new American subsidiary is called Rapidus Design Solutions. The chipmaker writes in a press release. The company's first office will be in Santa Clara, where Nvidia and Intel are located. RTS must recruit US customers and cooperate in developing the chips. According to the chipmaker, this is particularly concerning Myth Companies that design the chips, but don't manufacture them themselves.

Customers in Silicon Valley will initially make up the bulk of Rapidus' customer base, CEO Atsuyoshi Koike said. Nikkei, among others vs. It may be mainly about start-ups and new companies. Rapidus previously announced a partnership with Tenstorrent. It is a Canadian company that designs AI chips. Tenstorrent is headed by AMD and Apple veteran Jim Keller.

Henry Richard will be in charge of the American Rapidus subsidiary. He previously worked at companies such as AMD, IBM, NetApp and SanDisk, according to the chipmaker. The company said Richard already “has assembled a key leadership team for Rapidus' US sales and marketing.”

Rapidus was established in 2022 by the Japanese government and a consortium of major Japanese companies and investment partners. These include, for example, Sony, Toyota, Kioxia, NEC and SoftBank. The company wants to start producing 2nm chips by 2027. Rapidus American works with IBM. Chipmaker says there are already “over a hundred” engineers working with IBM researchers at the Albany Nanotech campus in New York state. Belgium also supports imec Rapidus.

Earlier this month, the Japanese government announced additional support for Rapidus. This is a total of 3.6 billion euros. The money is used, among other things, for chip production, although part of it goes to chip packaging research, for example 'packaging' chiplets. Rapidus will become an external foundry producing chips exclusively for other companies like DSMC.