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Semiconductor History | Fujitsu Kawasaki — The Computer Maker Builds Its Own ICs
· 1968
Personal memoryBy kevin · · updated · Report an issue
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Semiconductor History | Fujitsu Kawasaki — The Computer Maker Builds Its Own ICs
kevin
1968
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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
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