Sony will invest 100 billion yen ($918 Million USD) to build a new image sensor fab next year that should come online by April 2021. Sony’s last production expansion was in 2016 when they bought the Toshiba CIS plant in Oita Prefecture. It has been 12 years since Sony last built a sensor fabrication plant from the ground up, which was the Kumamoto Prefect fab in 2017.
The new plant will is planned to be built on a 74,800 square meter site that is adjacent to an existing fab in Isahaya, Nagasaki Prefecture. Sony hasn’t decided on the plant’s capacity yet, but it should be tens of thousands of wafers per month when finished. Sony believes it can increase its market share from 50% today to 60% by 2025.
“Originally the plans were laid in response to the huge mobile phone market but going forward image sensors will be in demand in various areas related to the ‘internet of things.’ They also eventually will be used in applications related to autonomous driving,” CFO Hiroki Totoki told a news briefing.
