Semiconductor History | Fujitsu Kawasaki — The Computer Maker Builds Its Own ICs
· 1968
Personal memoryBy kevin · · updated · Report an issue
Find memories left by people near you.
Distribute Bounty
This will distribute the bounty equally among all qualifying memories. This action cannot be undone.
Cancel Bounty
Are you sure you want to cancel this bounty? The remaining amount will be refunded to your account.
Success!
Operation completed successfully.
Error
Something went wrong.
Semiconductor History | Fujitsu Kawasaki — The Computer Maker Builds Its Own ICs
kevin
In 1968, Fujitsu completed the FACOM 230-60, a large computer that used monolithic integrated circuits throughout its circuitry. The machine followed Fujitsu’s mid-1960s establishment of integrated-circuit production at Kawasaki, joining semiconductor fabrication to the design of complete computers and communications systems.
That vertical integration had a clear advantage. Device engineers could tune logic families, packaging, reliability, and manufacturing around the requirements of Fujitsu’s own systems, while computer engineers gained early access to components that were scarce and strategically important. The independent IPSJ Computer Museum records the FACOM’s development in 1968 and its all-IC construction.
The good story is learning across organizational boundaries. Building both components and systems gave Fujitsu practical knowledge of how a transistor or memory cell behaved under real workloads, not only on a semiconductor data sheet. The same capability supported external semiconductor sales and helped Japan compete in mainframes, telecommunications, and later consumer electronics.
The bad story is the cost of keeping every layer competitive. A computer company can redesign a machine over several years, but a wafer fab demands continuous investment in cleaner facilities, new process tools, and higher yields. As global foundries spread those costs across many customers, an integrated producer tied mainly to its own products could struggle to fill each new generation of capacity.
Fujitsu’s later restructuring illustrates the pressure. Its semiconductor operations were separated, manufacturing ownership changed repeatedly, and Taiwan’s UMC ultimately acquired the remaining stake in the Mie foundry business in 2019. Technical competence did not disappear, but the capital-intensive factory ceased to be a wholly owned extension of the Japanese computer maker.
The Kawasaki site has direct continuity: Fujitsu’s chronology places completion of its Kawasaki Plant here in 1938, and today it remains the company’s Technology Park. The pictured tower is a later structure and not proof that a particular 1968 wafer line survives, but the pin marks the corporate campus where the component-and-computer strategy was organized.
Sources: [Fujitsu corporate chronology](https://global.fujitsu/en-global/about/corporate/history); [Fujitsu museum entry for the FACOM 230-60](https://global.fujitsu/en-global/about/corporate/museum/products/products/computer-mainframe-facom230-60); [IPSJ Computer Museum on the FACOM 230-60](https://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/computer/main/0016.html); [UMC announcement of the Mie foundry acquisition](https://www.umc.com/en/News/press_release/Content/investor/20190925).
Photo: Akonnchiroll, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
## 5. Semiconductor History|Panasonic Kadoma — The Conglomerate Sells Its Last Chip Business
changes?
delete this memory?
We detected that you have a Blox in your crypto wallet! We will import the Blox into your account.
Click on done below to complete the import.
Welcome Back!
Sign in to preserve cherished moments
Don't have an account?
Welcome!!
Sign up and start preserving cherished moments
?
?
Choose your payment method
Buy with Metablox Credit
Do you want to mint Blox with Metablox Credit?
Which Crypto would you like to use?
Purchase Confirmed!
Your Blox is being minted on-chain and will appear in your profile shortly.
Log in or sign up to claim your Blox.
How many credits do you want to buy?
$100 USD = 1 Metablox Credit = 1 Blox.
Use Metablox Credit to mint any Blox you want on the map.
expand_more