1960s
Japanese semiconductor manufacturers rigorously implemented quality-oriented management
*** Industry Trends ***
Postwar Japanese manufacturing companies focused on quality control to ensure long-term reliability under the guidance of American statistician W. Deming, who supported the GHQ in Japan's national census planning) [1]. Japanese electronics companies which began transistor production in the 1950s also rigorously implemented Deming-based quality control. While the United States, the birthplace of the transistor, considered ensuring quality for a certain period sufficient, Japan's thorough emphasis on quality was a major driving force behind its becoming the world's top producer of germanium transistors in 1959[2] and achieving global leadership, including silicon transistors, in the early 1960s [3]. This emphasis on quality also contributed to yield improvements in the LSI industry from the 1970s onward, significantly enhancing the competitiveness of Japanese semiconductors.
Japanese manufacturers' quality management activities can be broadly categorized as follows:
1. Quality Design for New Products: Quality certification, standard setting, and reliability assurance for new products and processes
2. In-Process Quality Control for Mass Production: Material and component inspection, 100% inspection, and sampling lot acceptance
3. Market-responsive quality management: Final inspection, claim handling, and collection and feedback of information from the market.
Furthermore, these were collective company-wide efforts as described below.
1) Close collaboration between engineers and between engineers and operators.
2) Active small group activities on the production floor.
3) A mindset of building quality into the production process existed.
From a process perspective, in the front-end process, to achieve cleanliness:
1. We actively developed and invested in equipment and facilities capable of maintaining and water purity.
2. We also advanced the automation of cleaning operations to reduce particulate emissions from personnel.
In the back-end process:
1. We promoted equipment automation to minimize quality variations caused by manual work.
2. We ensured thorough maintenance and management of automated machinery.
The development of Japan's quality management methods brought Deming, who had been virtually unknown in the United States during the 1980s, into the spotlight, prompting U.S. semiconductor companies to reevaluate their quality management practices. The aforementioned framework of Japanese quality management was also adopted in the United States, leading to the development of advanced process management techniques such as Motorola's Six Sigma.
【References】
- Deming Prize 60
https://www.juse.or.jp/deming/data/deming_60th.pdf - Semiconductor History Museum of Japan, Industry Trends, "1959: Japan reaches No.1 in the production of germanium transistors"
https://www.shmj.or.jp/english/trends.html - Semiconductor History Museum of Japan, Industry Trends, "Early 1960s: Japan became the world's largest producer of transistors"
https://www.shmj.or.jp/en/industry-trends/it196002e.html
Ver.001: 2026/2/1