Page 8 - november_ 22_102722aa.indd

TAP TIMES -8- NOVEMBER 2022

Memory (from 6) tor Industry Association, a trade combine,

to promote the semiconductor industry,
NEC, Toshiba and others. U.S. chip makers which is now located in Washington, D.C.,
badly wanted to be in the game. likely for lobbying reasons.

Memory galore Tough sales
There were lots of domestic chip makers Since the 1970s, U.S. sellers of memory
anxious to capture a chunk of the memory and other chips were irked because while
market. You’ve likely hard of them: AMD, it was relatively easy for Japan to sell
AT&T, Intel, Micron, Mostek, Signetics and
Texas Instruments, among others. chips into the U.S., it was freightfully
tough for U.S. sellers to do business in Ja-
It was a cut-throat business. Among the pan due to its high tariff barriers.
smallest of the memory-king wannabees
was a tiny upstart company surrounded by Later investigations into Japan’s chip sales
the potatoe fi elds of Boise, Idaho — Micron practices revealed that several Japanese
Technology — certainly an unlikely venue chip makers were actually selling memory
for semiconductors. below cost, hoping to capture a dominant
share of market.
With the severe competition (which Micron
and others said was mostly unfair from While the mega-makers here were trying
Japan), this tiny Idaho supplier was given to devise a strategy to sell into Japan and
about one chance in hell of surviving the counter the non-profi t competition from
Memory Wars. (See related article on 22). the East, the small operation surrounded
by the spud fi elds of Idaho decided its
To page 10
Selling below cost
Ultimately, the mega-Japa-
nese memory makers man-
aged to convince the U.S.
memory sellers, such as
Intel, to fi nd other paths to
profi t.

The Memory Wars began in
the late 1970s, when Japan
carved out a strong foot-
hold selling memory chips
to end-users in the U.S.,
especially DRAM.

The success of Japan’s
memory exports to the
U.S., according to Dr.Tsugio
Makimoto, Hitachi CEO,
may have sparked the for-
mation of the Semiconduc-