Sony and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. are in talks to spend a combined ¥1 trillion — about $6.3 billion to $6.4 billion, depending on the exchange rate used — on a joint factory in Japan to make next-generation image sensor chips.
The Nikkei business daily first reported the plan, according to Reuters, which put the figure at roughly $6.3 billion. Bloomberg reported the same ¥1 trillion sum, citing a person familiar with the matter and converting it to $6.4 billion.
According to Nikkei Asia, the plant will go up in Kumamoto prefecture in southern Japan, where TSMC already operates its own chip fabrication plant. Business Standard reported that the joint venture would be owned roughly 60% by Sony and 40% by TSMC, with commercial production starting as early as 2029.
What the plant would build is the less familiar half of a camera. An image sensor is the piece of silicon that turns light into data. Sony is the dominant name in that business; TSMC is the world's leading contract manufacturer of advanced logic chips. The venture pairs Sony's sensor design with TSMC's ability to make the very small, very fast processing circuitry that sits underneath it.
Reports from Moneycontrol and Newsbytes say the sensors are aimed at cars and robots — machines that need to see and react in real time, not just take pretty pictures. That is a different design target from smartphone cameras, and it implies chips that process more of what they see on the spot.
All of this is still described as talks, not a signed deal, and the figures vary slightly across outlets.
It matters because it locks another slice of advanced chipmaking into Japan, and signals that the companies expect self-driving cars and robots — not phones — to be the next big market for silicon that sees.