The 80 s and 90 s of the 20th century, Japanese industrial power peak, semiconductor, liquid crystal displays, high-end equipment, advanced material industry, etc., the authors.

Unfortunately, by early 1990, the nikkei crash down from the all-time high of 38915 points, just between the two and a half years fell to 15910 points. In the stock market falls, the prick Japan's bubble economy, Japan's leading global semiconductor industry advantage also gradually corrosion.

Just 10 years to decay

In 1990, six of the 10 largest semiconductor company home for Japanese companies, NEC, Toshiba and Hitachi high on three major semiconductor companies, Intel only 4 in the world, and South Korea's samsung electronics has not been able to enter the top 10 list.

In 1995, the Japanese company only four into the top 10 semiconductor company list, Intel, become the global leading semiconductor company, NEC, Toshiba and Hitachi step 2, 3, 4, samsung electronics, and modern electronic also squeeze into the top 10.

In 2000, only 10, NEC, Toshiba and Hitachi into samsung electronics, by much lagged behind Toshiba and NEC, the world's fourth largest semiconductor company, Intel is still the world's first, at the same time, the Japanese semiconductor industry has been going downhill.

Despising the previous memory industry around the world, and also in South Korea company under sharp attack, gradually lost competitiveness. To enhance competitiveness, NEC, Hitachi 2000 DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory and Dynamic Random Access Memory) units, was set up, will reach 2003, will merge mitsubishi electric Memory unit.

The DRAM industry

Unfortunately, although set three Japan's elpida memory department, still can't win in a competitive industry, declared bankruptcy in 2012, 2013 by meguiar's merger and acquisition, the Japanese were eliminated in the DRAM industry.

Japan encounter difficulties in DRAM industry, not only in the semiconductor logic also face fierce competition, in 2003, Hitachi and mitsubishi semiconductor sector merged to form Renesas (Renesas), the third Renesas turnover high on global semiconductor company.

Unfortunately, not merge brings growth but worse under, renesas and NEC electronics in 2010 merged to form renesas electronics, still does not have outstanding performance, 2015 annual turnover of 15 top the list of the world.

In 2015 ranked the top 10 global semiconductor company of Japan, Toshiba 1 only. Toshiba's main products for NAND Flash, 2 in NAND city share to the world, second only to samsung electronics.

Japanese only SONY CIS is strong

In addition to the Toshiba NAND Flash, Sony (Sony) CMOS Image Sensor (CIS Image Sensor), can be competitive in the global market is Japan semiconductor products. SONY's CIS to share about 30% of the city, ranked first in the world, in the high-end market, almost all is SONY.