Government-backed startup's 2-nanometer pilot production gets underway
spectrum.ieee.org, May. 07, 2025 –
There are only three companies in the world capable of executing the incredible precision of mass manufacturing the most advanced computer chips. Last month, a startup in Japan took the first step to becoming the fourth. Rapidus met a critical milestone on 1 April by powering up and testing its pilot line for 2-nanometer-node chips using a recipe developed in collaboration with IBM and based on the latter’s nanosheet- transistor structure. Rapidus told IEEE Spectrum that over 200 pieces of leading-edge equipment installed in its new fab in Chitose—including the keystone piece, a more than US $300 million state-of-the-art extreme ultraviolet( EUV) lithographysystem—were now ready for operation.
“We broke ground in September 2023,” says Henri Richard, president of Rapidus Design Solutions, established in Santa Clara, Silicon Valley, in April last year to oversee business development in the United States. “So it’s pretty amazing that at the beginning of the second quarter in 2025, we have made the first exposures of the EUV lithography systems and are now ready to start pilot production.”
As to when Rapidus will ship the first test chips, Rapidus CEO Atsuyoshi Koike told the Japan Times in April that “prototype chips will likely be produced in July.” While in a corporate statement clarifying media coverage on talks with customers, the company said it was holding discussions “with many potential customers, from large established enterprises to AI startups.”