The number of accepted Japanese semiconductor papers has declined, and Japanese media are worried that their competitiveness will decline rapidly

According to a report by the Nikkei on February 25, Japan's declining competitiveness became increasingly apparent at an international academic conference related to semiconductors.

According to the report, at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) held from February 20 to 28, the number of papers accepted by Japan accounted for only 3.5%, a slight decrease from 6.2% in the previous year. The backwardness of cutting-edge research may affect Japan's industrial competitiveness.

The ISSCC held in February every year is also known as the "Olympic Games of the Semiconductor Industry". It is ranked as a world-class academic conference for the semiconductor-related industry along with the International Symposium on Very Large Scale Integrated Circuits held in June and the International Electron Devices Conference held in December.

In 2022, ISSCC received a total of 651 papers, of which 200 were accepted. In terms of the countries and regions of origin of the accepted papers, the United States continued to lead with 69 papers, and South Korea had 41 papers. Japan ranked fifth with only 7 papers. As of 2014, Japan was still firmly in the second position, but fell to third in 2015. Although it rose to second place in 2016, it has been hovering between fourth and fifth since 2017.

Against the backdrop of sluggish performance, Japanese semiconductor companies have been in the process of sorting out and integrating for many years. The decline in the number of papers from the industry is the main reason for the decline in the number of accepted papers. Among the corporate papers accepted in 2022, only Canon and Renesas have one each from Japan. Companies such as Samsung of South Korea, Intel of the United States and IBM have multiple papers selected.