Product
Significant Expansion in Production Capacity for Ceramics for Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment Bringing Forward the Start of Production at the New Plant in Tajimi City, Gifu Prefecture and Expanding Production Capacity
March 20, 2018
NGK INSULATORS, LTD. (President Taku Oshima; Headquarters: Nagoya, Japan; “NGK”) today announced that it has decided to significantly expand production capacity for ceramics for semiconductor manufacturing equipment by investing an additional ¥20.0 billion in production sites at three locations in Japan, including the new plant that will be built with an investment of approximately ¥20.0 billion in Tajimi City, Gifu Prefecture. Through these investments, NGK will ramp up annual production capacity to around 1.5 times the previously planned level by fiscal 2020, thereby establishing a supply system that keeps pace with growing demand.
NGK currently produces ceramics for semiconductor manufacturing equipment at Chita Site (Handa City, Aichi Prefecture) and Komaki Site (Komaki City, Aichi Prefecture). In addition, NGK plans to build a new plant to be operated by NGK’s manufacturing subsidiary, NGK CERAMIC DEVICE CO., LTD., in Tajimi City, and to start production in October 2019. As part of the investment announced today, NGK will successively install additional production facilities at the three production sites, thereby expanding annual production capacity for NGK as a whole to around 1.5 times the previously planned level by fiscal 2020.
In May 2017, NGK announced that it will build a new plant in Tajimi City through an investment of approximately ¥20.0 billion and start production in April 2020. The operation of the new plant was scheduled to expand production capacity for ceramics for semiconductor manufacturing equipment by approximately 25%. However, surging demand is anticipated to continue, with demand projected to far outstrip NGK’s production capacity. Therefore, NGK has decided to invest in further expanding production capacity, along with bringing forward the start of production to October 2019. Initially, NGK had planned to start production by installing production facilities in half of the space of the plant building, and then install additional facilities according to trends in demand. NGK has decided to revise those plans by installing production facilities in all of the available space in the plant, thereby expanding production capacity.
The semiconductor market has been growing rapidly and is projected to continue growing steadily. This growth has been fueled by factors including increases in the memory capacity per mobile device, and increases in data volume driven by the full-scale emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), a trend that seeks to connect all manner of physical things to the Internet, and artificial intelligence (AI). Another factor has been progress on the replacement of conventional hard disk drives (HDDs) with solid state drives (SSDs) using semiconductor memory in data storage devices for PCs and data centers. Based on this growing demand, semiconductor manufacturers are expected to continue making high levels of capital investment. Demand for NGK products is also projected to increase further.
Going forward, NGK will continue to strengthen its supply system by making capital investments to expand production capacity according to growth in demand.
Overview of Capital Investment
| Investment amount ： | Approx. ¥20.0 billion |
| (including approx. ¥12.0 billion at the Tajimi Plant) | |
| Start of production ： | Chita Site : October 2018 |
| Komaki Site : April 2019 | |
| Tajimi Site : October 2019 (full production in April 2020) |
Overview of NGK CERAMIC DEVICE Tajimi Plant
Location : Within Nagase Town, Tajimi City, Gifu Prefecture (Tajimi Nagase Techno Park)
Total floor area : Approx. 36,000 m2
Production items : Ceramics for semiconductor manufacturing equipment (susceptors)
Capital investment amount : Approx. ¥32.0 billion
*Approx. ¥20.0 billion at previous announcement (May 2017)
Start of building construction : April 2018
Employees : Approx. 50 at the start of production (Approx. 200 at full production)
Overview of NGK CERAMIC DEVICE, CO., LTD.
Headquarters location : 434-3, Gotanda, Shimozue, Komaki City, Aichi Prefecture
Representative : President Minoru Ohara
Business : Produces ceramics for industrial electronics
Paid-in capital : ¥90.0 million (NGK INSULATORS, LTD. investment: 100%)
Establishment : August 1994
Employees : 760 (as of December 2017)
Plants : Komaki City, Aichi Prefecture, Tsuru City, Yamanashi Prefecture, and Nomi City, Ishikawa Prefecture
Susceptor
Susceptors are ceramic functional components that support a silicon wafer, a semiconductor material inside semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Leveraging the features of fine ceramics, which offer superior physical properties including strength plus heat and corrosion resistance, NGK has succeeded in producing high-performance susceptors by its unique manufacturing method. NGK susceptors deliver stable performance even in severe semiconductor manufacturing processes such as high-temperature corrosive gas, plasma, thereby enabling customers to enhance their semiconductor manufacturing productivity.
