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The Tech Archived · VIDEO ESSAY

What Happened to Japan’s Memory Chip Industry? How Japan Controlled 80% of DRAM, Then Lost It All

Japan’s memory chip industry once supplied about 80% of the world’s DRAM, then its last maker, Elpida Memory, went bankrupt owing 448 billion yen. This documentary traces how Japanese makers such as NEC, Hitachi, Toshiba and Fujitsu out-built American rivals, how Intel left memory in 1985, and what the 1986 US-Japan semiconductor agreement and the 1987 tariffs really did. It then follows Samsung’s rise to the largest DRAM supplier in 1992, the exits of the Japanese conglomerates, Elpida’s formation, its 2009 state rescue, the 2012 filing at the Tokyo District Court and the sale to Micron, the American firm that had petitioned against Japanese dumping in 1985. It explains why DRAM is a commodity business, why scale decided the outcome, and why the trade war was not the whole story.

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Japan’s memory chip industry once supplied about 80% of the world’s DRAM, then its last maker, Elpida Memory, went bankrupt owing 448 billion yen. This documentary traces how Japanese makers such as NEC, Hitachi, Toshiba and Fujitsu out-built American rivals, how Intel left memory in 1985, and what the 1986 US-Japan semiconductor agreement and the 1987 tariffs really did. It then follows Samsung’s rise to the largest DRAM supplier in 1992, the exits of the Japanese conglomerates, Elpida’s formation, its 2009 state rescue, the 2012 filing at the Tokyo District Court and the sale to Micron, the American firm that had petitioned against Japanese dumping in 1985. It explains why DRAM is a commodity business, why scale decided the outcome, and why the trade war was not the whole story.

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VIDEO DESCRIPTION

Japan’s memory chip industry once supplied about 80% of the world’s DRAM, then its last maker, Elpida Memory, went bankrupt owing 448 billion yen. This documentary traces how Japanese makers such as NEC, Hitachi, Toshiba and Fujitsu out-built American rivals, how Intel left memory in 1985, and what the 1986 US-Japan semiconductor agreement and the 1987 tariffs really did. It then follows Samsung’s rise to the largest DRAM supplier in 1992, the exits of the Japanese conglomerates, Elpida’s formation, its 2009 state rescue, the 2012 filing at the Tokyo District Court and the sale to Micron, the American firm that had petitioned against Japanese dumping in 1985. It explains why DRAM is a commodity business, why scale decided the outcome, and why the trade war was not the whole story.

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