Sony builds new wafer fab to boost CMOS sensor production

Smartphones now use three or more camera modules to take pictures, while smartphone sensors are getting bigger and bigger, and more devices will get computer vision support and more sensors. In the next few years, the demand for CMOS sensors will increase significantly. Sony revealed this week that the company will establish a new semiconductor factory in the Nagasaki Technology Center to increase the output of CMOS sensors to meet market demand.

As one of the leading suppliers of smartphone CMOS camera sensors, Sony has earned billions of dollars in this area. In the third quarter (second quarter of FY 2019), the Sony Imaging and Sensing Solutions (I&SS) division achieved revenue of $2.871 billion (up 56.3% year-on-year). As of late March 2018, Sony's CMOS production capacity was 100,000 300mm wafers per month, and the company gradually increased production by increasing plant space utilization and outsourcing part of the production, but this may not be enough.

To meet the demand for such products, the company continues to improve its fabs and hopes to increase its total capacity to approximately 138,000 wafers per month by the end of March 2021. In addition, Sony plans to invest billions of dollars in fab upgrades and build a new fab at the Nagasaki Technology Center, which is expected to be officially commissioned in FY 2021.

According to reports, the Sony Semiconductor Division (now known as I&SS) has not invested in new production facilities for 12 years. The company acquired a semiconductor factory from Toshiba and then restarted it in 2016 to manufacture sensors, but this is not a new wafer fab. Obviously, Sony now predicts that sensor demand will increase in the next few years, so it decided to invest in a new production line.

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