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Chinese chipmakers are taking group tours to network with their Japanese counterparts, as the semiconductor industry adapts to increasingly stringent export controls introduced by the US and its allies.
The tours offer access to Japanese chip companies and semiconductor trade fairs, including Semicon Japan and Nepcon Japan, according to advertisements, Japanese chip company employees and Chinese industry insiders.
Chip Think Tank, a consulting company backed by brokerage Tianfeng Securities, is offering an eight-day trip later in January focused on “exploring core opportunities in Japan’s semiconductor equipment and materials industry”.
The tour includes a ticket to a trade show and visits to more than 10 Japanese chip industry players led by a semiconductor expert with 20 years of experience, according to the company’s advertisement.
While overseas industry group tours have been popular in China for years, strict pandemic restrictions in the country limited travel until 2023. The trips have been revived as Chinese chipmakers seek ways to cope with Washington’s tightening export controls designed to curb China’s advances in semiconductor technology.
Chinese chipmakers hope to deepen existing relationships with Japanese material and tool suppliers or discover new companies in order to secure key equipment in the wake of the restrictions.
Beijing-based Zykcyx Travel Agency offered a tour last month centred around Semicon Japan, a semiconductor trade fair. Its tour included visits to Advantest, the biggest semiconductor test equipment manufacturer, and Disco, a prominent supplier for dicing and grinding silicon wafers.
A Chinese chip equipment manager, who was part of a different tour to Japan in December with a dozen other professionals from China, described the six-day trip as a “mission tour”.
“The air was filled with excitement and anticipation as we entered the expo halls, eager to learn and explore,” he said.
His trip, which cost about $3,000, featured a Japanese chip expert serving as a tour guide and provided translators during visits to trade shows. The manager visited six companies, including component suppliers, and conducted interviews with eight Japanese chip experts.
The US, Japan and the Netherlands have all introduced tightened restrictions on the export of advanced chipmaking technology to China, with the goal of curbing the country’s efforts to attain semiconductor self-sufficiency.
Despite the controls, which are limited to the most sophisticated technology, Chinese companies are still doing significant business in Japan. Japanese companies control anywhere between 28 and 44 per cent of the market for various chipmaking tools, according to research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The number of Chinese companies exhibiting at the Semicon Japan show was second only to Japan, according to the organiser SEMI. Shenyang Kingsemi, a leading Chinese semiconductor equipment maker, sent more than 20 employees for its debut at the show.
“Kingsemi’s participation in Semicon Japan for the first time is significant to the company’s efforts to expand its upstream supply chain, open up overseas customers and attract high-end talent,” the company wrote on its WeChat account.
There are some concerns that Chinese companies may be trying to learn more about the Japanese companies in order to reverse engineer advanced technology, according to a senior manager of a Japanese equipment company.
“Our competitors, the Chinese chipmaking gear makers, are approaching our supplier network, hoping to reverse engineer our products to tackle export controls,” said the senior manager.
“It’s uncertain whether Chinese companies can turn the tables against the US, but they are all more ambitious than ever.”
Additional reporting by Kana Inagaki in Tokyo
