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I think they'd say if the CPU was fabbed in Japan, instead there's some very "careful" wording: >next-generation CPU, FUJITSU-MONAKA [1], designed and develope

by iicc 17d ago

I think they'd say if the CPU was fabbed in Japan, instead there's some very "careful" wording: >next-generation CPU, FUJITSU-MONAKA [1], designed and developed in Japan >Fujitsu MONAKA Server, powered by the FUJITSU-MONAKA CPU, enhances sovereign capabilities through domestic manufacturing,

iicc 17d ago
>FUJITSU-MONAKA utilizes a 3D-stacked architecture with a state-of-the-art 2nm process for the core and a 5nm process for the cache and I/O sections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Advanced_Semiconductor_Manufacturing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Advanced_Semiconductor_M... >The Phase 2 factory was under construction as of January 2025, next to the Phase 1 facility, and is expected to be completed by 2027.[3] Initially planned for manufacturing semiconductors using a 6 nm process, 3 nm was incorporated into production plans for 2028 in 2026
kennywinker 17d ago
Right below the headline it says: > Achieving world-class AI inference performance through Japan-developed 2nm 3D-stacked CPU and server integrated, developed, and manufactured in Japan Sounds pretty clear to me
- amelius 17d ago
  So, server manufactured/integrated in Japan; actual chip manufactured elsewhere (but "developed" in Japan, whatever that means)?
  - ddtaylor 17d ago
    Doesn't really make sense to me. The whole "sovereign" thing is to basically say you won't be screwed if you go to war with a country tomorrow because you are dependent on their supply chain. Nothing about this changes that IMO. They're still getting the chips fabbed somewhere else and run the same risks.
    - adrian_b 17d ago
      True, but besides wars there are other dangers, e.g. USA does not declare war when they apply "sanctions" randomly, under the legal theory that they can dictate how anything that includes some piece of US origin may be used by its owner. Since that theory began to be used, anyone outside US has become anxious to become "sovereign", i.e. to stop using anything about which a foreign state can claim to have rights.
    - AtlasBarfed 17d ago
      Isn't the supply chain on advanced semiconductors ludicrously extended? Wafers rare Earth's, specialized equipment, etc?
    - numpad0 17d ago
      It means it's not beating B300 in FP4 TOPS.
    - stinkbeetle 17d ago
      > Doesn't really make sense to me. The whole "sovereign" thing is to basically say you won't be screwed if you go to war with a country tomorrow because you are dependent on their supply chain. I don't think it is that basic. If anything it's probably more about having protection from trade and sanction threats, and insulation from shortages, supply chain problems. > Nothing about this changes that IMO. They're still getting the chips fabbed somewhere else and run the same risks. It certainly changes it. Chip design is of enormous importance and the technology leaders there are concentrated in the USA. Silicon manufacturing is a different thing. Japan is also trying to bring up sovereign leading(ish) edge manufacturing. Obviously you keep peeling the onion on everything though - to do digital logic they need EDA tools and quite possibly IP blocks for PCI and DDR and so on. To do manufacturing they need scanners from ASML and a process design from IBM and so on... It doesn't mean that because they can't do everything from the ground up that it's pointless. At some point they need to import coal and iron ore and bauxite.
    - monocasa 17d ago
      It's a nuclear weapons thing. Basically you want your entire nuclear weapons supply chain infrastructure to be in your own country. These days that also includes super computers to do simulations on what happens with your aging asrenal (just look at how many Top 500 supercomputers are at national labs like Oak Ridge, LLNL, or Sandia). Japan doesn't technically have nuclear weapons, but they're rumored to be "a screwdriver's turn away", or practically within a few weeks of having a weapon. That posture itself requires even more simulation just to be sure you can make good on that. The AI stuff is basically "well sure, these are really good at distributed matrix math, why not?" hoping to get better volumes and make the program cheaper internally. And they're working on getting chips fabbed in Japan too now that IBM sold their 2nm process to Rapidus, but that's probably successor to these. Maybe 2028? In the meantime there's still more nuclear simulations to run than there is compute to run them.
  - adrian_b 17d ago
    They made a detailed presentation at Hot Chips. All the component chips are made at TSMC, in various processes. "Developed in Japan" means the same thing like "developed in USA" means for NVIDIA or AMD or Intel. You can design chips anywhere on the planet, as long as TSMC is willing to provide you the required documentation and EDA libraries (which it does only if you already are or they believe that you will be a big customer).
- wongarsu 17d ago
  depends on whether you read it as ((2nm 3d stacked CPU) and server) (integrated, developed, and manufactured in Japan) or (2nm 3d stacked CPU) and (server integrated, developed, and manufactured in Japan)
- TheRealPomax 17d ago
  Indeed, it is extremely clear: by not saying "manufactured in Japan", the words "developed in Japan" tell you that they drew up the designs for the CPU in Japan, and then sent those designs off to a fab outside Japan for actual manufacturing. Then they bring those CPUs back to Japan, so that the server can be manufactured in Japan even if the server components are not. That manufacturing step may change in the future, but right now that CPU is not "Made in Japan", it's only "Designed in Japan".
  - adrian_b 17d ago
    They did a presentation at Hot Chips, with all these details. The core die is made with TSMC-N2P, while the SRAM die and the peripheral die are made with TSMC-N5. Their CPU is designed in Japan, like the AMD CPUs or the Intel CPUs are designed in USA (the latest Panther Lake Intel CPUs have returned for fabrication to USA in 2026, but they also cost double than the corresponding Arrow Lake models made at TSMC in 2025, and their GPUs are still made at TSMC).
    - osnium123 17d ago
      When will they be using Rapidus?
- aurareturn 17d ago
  The compute part must have been made in Taiwan because it uses TSMC N2. TSMC N2 is only available in Taiwan right now due to a law restricting the latest node to Taiwan for 1-2 years.
  - alightsoul 17d ago
    That's Taiwan's silicon shield which the taiwanese see as important. That's why japan has rapidus and the us has Intel
flakiness 17d ago
Yeah I had a slight hope that they'd be a one of the first real Rapidus customers. but apparently not (for this one at least).

by iicc 17d ago

iicc 17d ago

>FUJITSU-MONAKA utilizes a 3D-stacked architecture with a state-of-the-art 2nm process for the core and a 5nm process for the cache and I/O sections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Advanced_Semiconductor_Manufacturing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Advanced_Semiconductor_M... >The Phase 2 factory was under construction as of January 2025, next to the Phase 1 facility, and is expected to be completed by 2027.[3] Initially planned for manufacturing semiconductors using a 6 nm process, 3 nm was incorporated into production plans for 2028 in 2026

kennywinker 17d ago

Right below the headline it says: > Achieving world-class AI inference performance through Japan-developed 2nm 3D-stacked CPU and server integrated, developed, and manufactured in Japan Sounds pretty clear to me

amelius 17d ago
So, server manufactured/integrated in Japan; actual chip manufactured elsewhere (but "developed" in Japan, whatever that means)?
- ddtaylor 17d ago
  Doesn't really make sense to me. The whole "sovereign" thing is to basically say you won't be screwed if you go to war with a country tomorrow because you are dependent on their supply chain. Nothing about this changes that IMO. They're still getting the chips fabbed somewhere else and run the same risks.
  - adrian_b 17d ago
    True, but besides wars there are other dangers, e.g. USA does not declare war when they apply "sanctions" randomly, under the legal theory that they can dictate how anything that includes some piece of US origin may be used by its owner. Since that theory began to be used, anyone outside US has become anxious to become "sovereign", i.e. to stop using anything about which a foreign state can claim to have rights.
  - AtlasBarfed 17d ago
    Isn't the supply chain on advanced semiconductors ludicrously extended? Wafers rare Earth's, specialized equipment, etc?
  - numpad0 17d ago
    It means it's not beating B300 in FP4 TOPS.
  - stinkbeetle 17d ago
    > Doesn't really make sense to me. The whole "sovereign" thing is to basically say you won't be screwed if you go to war with a country tomorrow because you are dependent on their supply chain. I don't think it is that basic. If anything it's probably more about having protection from trade and sanction threats, and insulation from shortages, supply chain problems. > Nothing about this changes that IMO. They're still getting the chips fabbed somewhere else and run the same risks. It certainly changes it. Chip design is of enormous importance and the technology leaders there are concentrated in the USA. Silicon manufacturing is a different thing. Japan is also trying to bring up sovereign leading(ish) edge manufacturing. Obviously you keep peeling the onion on everything though - to do digital logic they need EDA tools and quite possibly IP blocks for PCI and DDR and so on. To do manufacturing they need scanners from ASML and a process design from IBM and so on... It doesn't mean that because they can't do everything from the ground up that it's pointless. At some point they need to import coal and iron ore and bauxite.
  - monocasa 17d ago
    It's a nuclear weapons thing. Basically you want your entire nuclear weapons supply chain infrastructure to be in your own country. These days that also includes super computers to do simulations on what happens with your aging asrenal (just look at how many Top 500 supercomputers are at national labs like Oak Ridge, LLNL, or Sandia). Japan doesn't technically have nuclear weapons, but they're rumored to be "a screwdriver's turn away", or practically within a few weeks of having a weapon. That posture itself requires even more simulation just to be sure you can make good on that. The AI stuff is basically "well sure, these are really good at distributed matrix math, why not?" hoping to get better volumes and make the program cheaper internally. And they're working on getting chips fabbed in Japan too now that IBM sold their 2nm process to Rapidus, but that's probably successor to these. Maybe 2028? In the meantime there's still more nuclear simulations to run than there is compute to run them.
- adrian_b 17d ago
  They made a detailed presentation at Hot Chips. All the component chips are made at TSMC, in various processes. "Developed in Japan" means the same thing like "developed in USA" means for NVIDIA or AMD or Intel. You can design chips anywhere on the planet, as long as TSMC is willing to provide you the required documentation and EDA libraries (which it does only if you already are or they believe that you will be a big customer).
wongarsu 17d ago
depends on whether you read it as ((2nm 3d stacked CPU) and server) (integrated, developed, and manufactured in Japan) or (2nm 3d stacked CPU) and (server integrated, developed, and manufactured in Japan)
TheRealPomax 17d ago
Indeed, it is extremely clear: by not saying "manufactured in Japan", the words "developed in Japan" tell you that they drew up the designs for the CPU in Japan, and then sent those designs off to a fab outside Japan for actual manufacturing. Then they bring those CPUs back to Japan, so that the server can be manufactured in Japan even if the server components are not. That manufacturing step may change in the future, but right now that CPU is not "Made in Japan", it's only "Designed in Japan".
- adrian_b 17d ago
  They did a presentation at Hot Chips, with all these details. The core die is made with TSMC-N2P, while the SRAM die and the peripheral die are made with TSMC-N5. Their CPU is designed in Japan, like the AMD CPUs or the Intel CPUs are designed in USA (the latest Panther Lake Intel CPUs have returned for fabrication to USA in 2026, but they also cost double than the corresponding Arrow Lake models made at TSMC in 2025, and their GPUs are still made at TSMC).
  - osnium123 17d ago
    When will they be using Rapidus?
aurareturn 17d ago
The compute part must have been made in Taiwan because it uses TSMC N2. TSMC N2 is only available in Taiwan right now due to a law restricting the latest node to Taiwan for 1-2 years.
- alightsoul 17d ago
  That's Taiwan's silicon shield which the taiwanese see as important. That's why japan has rapidus and the us has Intel

flakiness 17d ago

Yeah I had a slight hope that they'd be a one of the first real Rapidus customers. but apparently not (for this one at least).