In November 1999, Motorola said its Tohoku Semiconductor operation in Sendai, Japan, would anchor an integrated Asian “mega site” bringing semiconductor planning, design and production together. The plan included a roughly $190 million upgrade to the fab’s 8-inch line. Motorola took full ownership in 2000, but the site did not remain intact: Fujifilm acquired the 8-inch fab in 2003, and Freescale closed its remaining Sendai wafer operation in 2011.
What was Tohoku Semiconductor?
Tohoku Semiconductor (TSC) was a Motorola–Toshiba joint venture based in Sendai, in Japan’s Tohoku region. The National Academies’ history says the companies designated the site in May 1987; the venture was established in 1987, and its facility was completed about a year later. The partnership paired Toshiba’s memory expertise with Motorola’s logic and microprocessor technology.
Motorola expanded its Sendai presence beyond wafer fabrication: it added an assembly plant in 1991 and a design and research-and-development center in 1995. Those existing capabilities provided the foundation for the broader integration Motorola described in 1999.
What did Motorola mean by an Asian “mega site”?
On November 17, 1999, Motorola presented Sendai as a place to concentrate semiconductor planning, design and manufacturing for Japan and the wider Asia-Pacific region. The strategy reflected a shift in emphasis: instead of locating operations close to individual customers, Motorola argued that system-on-chip development made it more important to bring resources together. Motohiro Kitajima, then executive vice president of Motorola Japan, called TSC a “significant base” for the company’s semiconductor operations in Asia Pacific and Japan.
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Motorola described Austin, Texas, as a model for the integrated approach. In the same period, Motorola Japan stated a goal of increasing its share of the Japanese semiconductor market from 2 percent to 10 percent over five years. That was a target, not a reported result.
The announced 8-inch-line upgrade
The November 1999 trade-press account described a planned upgrade to TSC’s 8-inch production line. The figures below are the announced plan, not confirmation that the upgrade was completed as specified.
| Measure | Announced plan |
|---|---|
| Investment | About $190 million for the planned upgrade, as reported in 1999. |
| Process migration | Move from 0.5-micron to 0.3-micron processing. |
| Capacity | Maintain roughly 20,000 wafers per month after the upgrade, according to the 1999 report. |
Why did Motorola buy Toshiba’s stake?
TSC was a joint venture, with Toshiba holding 50 percent. On September 13, 1999, Toshiba and Motorola announced that Motorola would acquire Toshiba’s entire holding when the venture’s term expired at the end of 2000. The agreement would give Motorola full ownership of the Sendai operation, consistent with its announced plan to concentrate semiconductor resources there. JETRO later recorded Motorola’s 100 percent takeover at the end of 2000.
What happened to the Sendai fab afterward?
The mega-site plan did not persist in its 1999 form. In 2003, Fujifilm Microdevices agreed to take over TSC’s 8-inch fab. TSC continued making automotive products on its 6-inch line, so the transfer changed the site’s manufacturing configuration rather than ending all Sendai production at once.
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Motorola separated its semiconductor business into Freescale in 2004. Freescale’s April 5, 2011, release said the March 11 earthquake had extensively damaged its Sendai facility and that the wafer operation would not reopen. The company described about 600 employees at the facility before closure; production was closed in March 2011 as part of consolidation.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How should the 1999 plan be judged?
The announcement established Motorola’s intent to make Sendai an integrated Asian semiconductor base, and the subsequent full acquisition of TSC gave Motorola sole ownership. But the later transfer of the 8-inch line and the eventual closure of Freescale’s remaining wafer operation show that the original configuration was not durable. The historical material cited here does not establish whether Motorola achieved its five-year Japanese market-share target or quantify the “synergy effect” it expected from concentrating operations.
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