TOKYO, July 5 (Reuters) - Financial firm SBI Holdings (8473.T) said on Wednesday it would help Taiwan's Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (6770.TW) establish a factory in Japan as the country looks to revive its chip industry.
"This is the best possible time to enter chip manufacturing," Kitao said at a joint press conference with the Taiwanese company's chairman, Frank Huang.
Powerchip is currently looking at three or four potential sites and manufacturing could begin two years after construction starts, Kitao added.
Japan is also funding a homegrown venture, Rapidus, which says it plans to produce advanced logic chips from the middle of the decade with help from IBM Corp (IBM.N).
Powerchip provides contract manufacturing services for logic and memory chips for power management to customers including MediaTek Inc (2454.TW), Taiwan's largest designer of mobile phone chips.
Persons:
Yoshitaka Kitao, Kitao, Frank Huang, Powerchip, Miho Uranaka, Tim Kelly, Christopher Cushing, Jamie Freed, Louise Heavens
Organizations:
Financial, SBI Holdings, Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp, SBI, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Sony Group, Denso Corp, Kioxia Corp, Western Digital Corp, chipmaker Micron Technology, IBM Corp, MediaTek Inc, Thomson
Locations:
TOKYO, Japan, Kumamoto prefecture, Hiroshima