Semiconductor History | OKI Hachioji — The Chip Business Becomes LAPIS
· 2008-10
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Semiconductor History | OKI Hachioji — The Chip Business Becomes LAPIS
kevin
On October 1, 2008, Oki Electric spun off its semiconductor business as OKI Semiconductor Co., Ltd. and transferred 95 percent of the new company’s shares to ROHM. The deal ended direct control by a communications-equipment pioneer whose Hachioji operation had begun transistor production in 1961, IC production in 1967, and microprocessor production in 1977.
ROHM bought a portfolio with relatively little overlap: low-power, high-voltage, mixed digital-and-analog, small-package, memory, optical-communications, logic, and foundry capabilities. In 2011 OKI Semiconductor became LAPIS Semiconductor, and later reorganizations separated design and manufacturing activities within the ROHM group. The lineage remains visible in low-power microcontrollers and mixed-signal technologies even after the OKI name left the chips.
The good was a more focused home for the engineering. ROHM could combine its analog and discrete strengths with OKI’s digital, communications, and low-power knowledge, share fabs and sales channels, and keep products supported through a difficult financial cycle. Customers did not have to redesign every system simply because the former parent wanted to concentrate on information, telecom, printers, and mechatronics.
The bad was strategic retreat. Japan lost another semiconductor business inside a diversified electronics company, and the promised synergy came with integration risk, overlapping operations, and less local autonomy. The physical site tells the story bluntly: the former 550-1 Hachioji technology and production district was later redeveloped, and the address is now occupied by the Iias Takao shopping center. Industrial memory can disappear from the streetscape even when the intellectual property survives elsewhere.
The pin uses the verified center of that former OKI parcel. The cover is an actual OKI M80C85A-2, an 8085-compatible processor marked as made in Thailand; it illustrates OKI’s semiconductor catalog and global manufacturing, not the 2008 transfer ceremony or a Hachioji-made part.
Sources: OKI 2008 environmental and corporate reports; ROHM 2009 Annual Report and acquisition notices; LAPIS Semiconductor corporate history.
Photo: “Ic-photo-OKI--M80C85A-2--(8085-CPU),” ZyMOS, CC BY-SA 4.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ic-photo-OKI--M80C85A-2--(8085-CPU).JPG
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