"Semiconductors" Articles (20)

The Asahi Kasei Arrest: Which Law Was Broken, and Where Export Controls Fit

On September 17, 2026, Aichi police arrested a former Asahi Kasei employee on suspicion of disclosing trade secrets on a latent curing agent used in semiconductor packaging to a Chinese company. Working from Asahi Kasei's own statement and Japanese press reports, this article lays out the timeline, explains which part of Japan's Unfair Competition Prevention Act the arrest rests on, why the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act and the Economic Security Promotion Act do not appear, and what to check in your own company today. Updated to include the reported indictment of October 27, 2026.

2026-09-18Ryuta Hamamoto

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From Blacklist Screening to Proof of Origin | What Pax Silica and the Silicon Highway Change

Pax Silica grew to 24 signatories at its second summit in June 2026. The Silicon Highway, backed by up to $50 million, would move trusted cargo faster using cryptographic verification and pre-approval. Export control is shifting from screening names, to tracing ownership, to proving provenance.

2026-08-24Ryuta Hamamoto

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Is Six or Seven Years Enough for Stealing a Process Recipe? | Sentencing, and the Gate You Actually Control

Korean courts handed down six years four months and seven years for leaking Samsung DRAM process technology to a Chinese manufacturer. Against a development cost of 1.6 trillion won, is that proportionate? A look at Korean sentencing, Japan's far lower ceiling, and why criminal law can never protect your technology.

2026-08-24Ryuta Hamamoto

Tech Trends

Is Terafab Really the Largest Building Ever? Running the Numbers on 100 Million Square Feet

On August 6, 2026, SpaceX and Tesla announced Terafab, a semiconductor plant in Grimes County, Texas.

2026-08-08Ryuta Hamamoto

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Korea and Taiwan Both Passed Japan in Exports: Reading H1 2026 From the Primary Statistics

In the first half of 2026, Korea and Taiwan both passed Japan in export value for the first time: Korea USD 496.7bn, Taiwan USD 416.6bn, Japan JPY 60.66 trillion. Checked against primary statistics, with a November 6 follow-up on January to September showing the ranking unchanged and the gap wider.

2026-08-08Ryuta Hamamoto

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The 2026 Japan-India Summit Explained: Takaichi and Modi's Economic-Security Declaration, ~2 Trillion Yen in Investment, and Cooperation on Semiconductors and Critical Minerals

The 2026 Japan-India Summit Explained: Takaichi and Modi's Economic-Security Declaration, ~2 Trillion Yen in Investment, and Cooperation on Semiconductors and.

2026-07-06Ryuta Hamamoto

Tech Trends

Why Apple Raised Its Prices: How Surging Memory Chip Costs and AI Demand Reached the Checkout Counter

On June 25, 2026, Apple raised the prices of its Macs and iPads. The cause was a sharp jump in memory chip costs.

2026-06-29Ryuta Hamamoto

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How High Will GPU and Memory Prices Climb? An Economic-Security Reading of the Supply Crunch and Chipmakers' Earnings

Over the past year, I have heard the same two complaints across every industry: GPUs are expensive, and memory is hard to get.

2026-06-29Ryuta Hamamoto

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The Coming "Age of Memory": The HBM Bottleneck and Who Stands to Gain

A practical guide to The Coming "Age of Memory": The HBM Bottleneck and Who Stands to Gain. Topics include HBM, Memory, Semiconductors.

2026-06-29Ryuta Hamamoto

Tech Trends

How AI Is Reshaping Chips, Power, and Data Centers: All the Way to Space-Based Data Centers

As AI advances, chips have entered a "you can never have enough" state, and the next bottleneck has turned out to be power.

2026-06-21Ryuta Hamamoto

Tech Trends

How the Semiconductor Industry Is Built: Design, Manufacturing, Equipment, Materials, and Memory Explained for Beginners

Right now, the smartphone in your hand contains a chip the size of a grain of rice packed with tens of billions of switches.

2026-06-21Ryuta Hamamoto

Tech Trends

The Semiconductor Relationship Map: How NVIDIA, TSMC, ASML, and ARM Connect

NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Apple, Micron, ARM, TSMC, ASML, Kioxia. Where do the leading players in semiconductors compete, and where do they depend on each other?

2026-06-21Ryuta Hamamoto