In line with these reports the company is also said to have begun adjusting its equipment in preparation for wafer test production that will begin later this month and Rapidus is said to be expecting to complete its prototype chips (samples) by July 2025.
Citing the company’s President, Atsuyoshi Koike, these reports suggest that the company anticipates gaining a clearer picture of its customers within the year, with Koike stating that some degree of validation for the prototype chips is expected to be possible between mid- and late July.
The factory’s production capacity, however, suggests that the number of customers will remain in the single digits.
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has already announced that it will provide additional financial assistance to Rapidus in 2025, with subsidies worth up to $5.4 billion.
The Japanese government has already provided around $6bn in support to Rapidus and total subsidies are expected to significantly exceed $10bn.
Despite additional funding Rapidus has said that to achieve mass production of 2nm chips by 2027, it will need significant additional funding.
In an increasingly competitive market Rapidus’s fully automated advanced packaging capability, which is expected to significantly shorten the production cycle for designs requiring advanced packaging, gives it a significant advantage over the likes of TSMC and Samsung, however, it is only offering pilot production of semiconductor wafers and has not yet begun providing testing or packaging services.
Reports have suggested that Broadcom is expected to become a customer of Rapidus’s 2nm chips and if Broadcom verifies the performance of the chip samples that are provided later this year, Rapidus will reportedly be commissioned for production.
