[News] Rapidus Accelerates 1nm Push, Reportedly Targets Six-Month Gap with TSMC

Japan’s Rapidus is accelerating its push into advanced chipmaking. According to Nikkei XTech, CTO Kazunari Ishimaru said the company is aiming to narrow its technology gap with TSMC to around six months at the 1nm node.

In parallel, another Nikkei XTech report notes that Rapidus plans to begin development of 1.4nm semiconductor manufacturing technology in 2026, with mass production reportedly targeted for around 2029.

By comparison, according to Economic Daily News, TSMC’s 1nm process may be deployed earlier at its Central Taiwan Science Park facility, with the first fab expected to complete risk trial production by the end of 2027 and enter mass production in the second half of 2028.

Rapidus Advances 2nm Development and Accelerates Progress

Meanwhile, as noted by Nikkei XTech, Rapidus plans to begin producing customer designed 2nm test chips by late 2026, marking an important step toward its targeted mass production in 2027. Nikkei XTech adds that demand has been strong from U.S. firms, particularly in AI, as well as customers in Japan and Europe.

Nikkei XTech also highlights recent progress in Rapidus’s 2nm development. The company said it demonstrated operational 2nm transistors at a customer event in July 2025, although performance at that stage had yet to meet expectations. By around September 2025, it began refining performance characteristics, with improvements advancing at a rapid pace.

Notably, the report indicates that work that took about one and a half years in Albany, New York, where IBM has a development base and dispatched engineers, was completed in less than two months at Rapidus’s Chitose plant in Hokkaido, underscoring a significantly faster pace of development.

As Japan’s semiconductor ecosystem continues to evolve, TSMC is also advancing its local footprint. In February 2026, according to Yomiuri Shimbun, TSMC finalized plans to mass-produce advanced 3nm semiconductors in Kumamoto Prefecture—the first such production in Japan. The project is expected to involve around $17 billion in capital investment. The report adds that the government believes the applications of 3nm chips differ from those targeted by Rapidus, and therefore sees no direct market competition between the two.

Read more

• [News] Rapidus Reportedly Secures ¥167.6B Private Funding; 60 Clients in Talks, 10 Receive Initial Quotes
• [News] TSMC Said to Plan 2nm Production in U.S., 1nm Fab in Tainan

(Photo credit: Rapidus)