That year, he was 66 years old, having devoted his entire life to the DRAM field, he watched helplessly as Elpida, the largest and last DRAM memory factory in Japan, collapsed, and he was labeled as the "last president."

"I don't want to end my life as a loser, I want to make an end by myself," Sakamoto Yukio said in an interview.

In fact, Sakamoto Yukio has served as the vice president of Texas Instruments in Japan, the general manager of the semiconductor division of Kobe Steel Electronic Information Science, the president and representative director of United Japan Semiconductor, and the president, representative director, and CEO of Elpida Memory, making his resume even richer than that of Morris Chang.

With over 30 years of experience in the DRAM field, he is known as the "godfather of Japanese semiconductors." The life of Sakamoto Yukio is also a microcosm of the era of Japanese memory storage.

01

The moment of the rise of Japanese memory storage

In 1947, Sakamoto Yukio was born into a wealthy family in Japan.

The choices everyone makes after growing up are inextricably linked to the enlightenment of their youth. Sakamoto Yukio is no exception. His parents were in the home appliance business, and with the advantage of proximity, he was exposed to a wide variety of electrical appliances at a very young age.

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Instead of the building blocks and dolls that his peers had, he had only the discarded electrical appliances from his father's store. He took them apart and put them back together, constantly tinkering with these electrical components.In 1970, Yukio Sakamoto graduated from the Japanese University of Physical Education, majoring in gymnastics. During the 1950s to 1970s, Japan and the United States were in a period often described as a "honeymoon phase." A significant number of Japanese individuals were able to enter American companies, and Yukio Sakamoto was one of them.

Upon initially joining Texas Instruments, he was assigned to a position managing the warehouse. He had a genuine passion for chip work, and in addition to diligently performing his job, he devoted almost all of his spare time to learning related knowledge. According to Yukio Sakamoto's own recollections, he believes he was in a phase that was "almost crazy."

He had an indelible enthusiasm for DRAM (Dynamic Random-Access Memory), and with a spirit of hard work and resilience, Yukio Sakamoto's career advanced swiftly.

During this time, in order to gain better development within Texas Instruments, Yukio Sakamoto deliberately learned a complete set of advanced American management methods. Because every task he undertook during his tenure was executed exceptionally well, it took him less than ten years to rise to the position of Vice President of Texas Instruments, a move that was met with no objections from the Japanese industry.

At this juncture, the development of Japan's semiconductor industry was also flourishing.

The rapid rise of Japan's semiconductor industry overtook the former "big brother," the United States, and at one point, Japan held 90% of the global DRAM market share.

For the United States, it was very difficult to accept being surpassed by their "younger brother." This led to the well-known Plaza Accord, after which the Japanese semiconductor industry began to decline.

As the Japanese chip industry started to collapse, Yukio Sakamoto, with his experience from a major American semiconductor company, was seen as a lifesaver by Japanese semiconductor enterprises. The local Japanese company Kobe Steel Electronic Information Group recognized his value and offered him an attractive package to join them.

At that time, TSMC and UMC were competing fiercely in the foundry business. UMC, with substantial funds, was actively seeking to acquire assets, and they purchased the eight-inch production line from Nippon Steel. However, due to the conservative nature of Japanese corporate culture, Hui-Ming Hsu, the head of UMC, spent 400 million New Taiwan dollars to acquire the loss-making Nippon Steel Semiconductor and then poached Yukio Sakamoto.Yukio Sakamoto also demonstrated his formidable operational capabilities, using strong measures to push forward and help his boss, Nobuaki Shima, merge Kobe Steel Semiconductor and Nippon Steel Semiconductor to form UMC Japan. This company turned a profit of 12 billion yen within a year. Among a multitude of Japanese companies complaining about their hardships, it could be considered a rising star.

02

Appointed in a time of crisis, gaining great fame

Sakamoto's experience in merging Kobe and Nippon Steel, the excellent profit record of UMC Japan, and his outstanding resume in American semiconductor companies, all caught the eye of the newly established Elpida.

In 1999, in an effort to save Japan's DRAM industry, the Japanese government pooled the country's high-quality resources. Led by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, NEC and Hitachi each spun off their DRAM businesses to establish the new company Elpida. In 2004, Mitsubishi Electric's DRAM business division was also merged in. Since then, the DRAM businesses of the three Japanese semiconductor manufacturers, which were ranked second, fifth, and eighth in the global top ten semiconductor manufacturers by IC Insights in 1993, have been brought together.

Elpida is the Greek word for "hope," and the company name reflects the high expectations the Japanese semiconductor industry has for this last DRAM manufacturer. The Japanese media at the time described this semiconductor "newcomer" with immense favor—Hitachi, with its strong new technology research capabilities, and NEC, with its strong production technology capabilities, would merge to create the world's most powerful memory chip manufacturer.

At this time, Yukio Sakamoto was appointed in a time of crisis, serving as the trump card for the company's restructuring as the president of Elpida Memory, and thus gained great fame.After taking over the precarious Elpida, Sakamoto began to implement a talent recruitment strategy that was independent of the parent company's influence.

In terms of fundraising, when Sakamoto realized that he could not rely on the parent company and banks, he flew to the United States to negotiate directly with the head of Intel's investment department and secured their financial support. With Intel's backing and endorsement, Elpida's creditworthiness was significantly enhanced.

Sakamoto was also adept at personal marketing as a business operator. He once went solo to major clients in the United States, such as Dell, to facilitate project deals.

In fact, Sakamoto Yukio himself was very distinctive and could always adhere to his "stubborn" personal style. Having spent most of his career in foreign companies, Sakamoto was known for his straightforward and candid approach, completely devoid of the bureaucratic air of traditional Japanese corporations, to the extent that he was referred to by his subordinates as "the least Japanese Japanese person."

In Sakamoto Yukio's later recollections, he mentioned: "What's wrong with executives from large corporations? First and foremost, they don't get their hands dirty. For someone like me who has long worked in foreign enterprises, it was quite refreshing to see a bunch of people in Japanese organizations putting on airs."

As a result of these various measures, Elpida experienced a brief period of recovery after its formation. In its most brilliant year, 2004, Elpida was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

A substantial amount of capital flowed into the company, and Elpida once again enjoyed prosperous times, but crises loomed. In 2005, even with Sakamoto Yukio's vigorous promotion, Elpida's profit margin only reached 3%, which was a stark contrast to Samsung's 30% profit margin during the same period.

However, after the initial aggressive expansion, Elpida's market share and production capacity both increased significantly, and by 2006, it entered the top 20 global semiconductor manufacturers.

Starting in 2008, with the onset of the economic crisis, Samsung aggressively expanded production with its substantial financial backing, and most companies subsequently went bankrupt. At this time, Elpida was still actively investing in production expansion, stating that it would maintain an annual increase of two 12-inch factories over the next three years.

Sometimes, death is just a matter of an instant. In the price war between Elpida and Samsung, the decline in chip prices led to a break in Sakamoto Yukio's Elpida's cash flow, and by 2011, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy.In the spring of 2012, Elpida was forced to declare bankruptcy, with debts amounting to 448 billion yen. The year 2012, when Elpida went bankrupt, was a year of total collapse for Japan's electronics industry. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, major Japanese semiconductor companies suffered losses across the board, and the overall output value of the electronics industry plummeted to less than half of what it was in 2000.

Elpida was ultimately acquired by Micron for a price of 2 billion US dollars.

The collapse of a pillar industry has made Elpida's bankruptcy a subject of repeated contemplation and study in the Japanese industrial community. Elpida, which once had grand ambitions, has long been submerged in the torrent of semiconductor history.

03

""This is the last chance"""

The loss of decades of hard work caused Sakamoto Yukio immense heartache.

In an interview, Sakamoto Yukio said: "I don't want to end my life as a loser, I want to settle the score myself." After Elpida's bankruptcy, Sakamoto Yukio did two things. First, he wrote a book called "Reluctant Defeat," reflecting his reluctance and helplessness over Elpida's bankruptcy; second, he came to China, attempting to use Chinese funds to make a comeback and clear his name.

At the end of 2019, Sakamoto Yukio joined China's Unigroup as Senior Vice President and CEO of the Japanese subsidiary, using his rich experience and connections to build a DRAM R&D team, and planning to build a factory in Chongqing to produce DRAM chips.

In June 2022, Sakamoto Yukio once again took the helm, joining Shenzhen SwaySure Technology Co., Ltd. as Chief Strategy Officer. "This will be the last job of my life," Sakamoto Yukio revealed, "I will give my all to contribute my strength and help the company achieve its strategic goals."

In many articles, it is argued that Sakamoto Yukio came to China with a strong sense of "revenge." In fact, objectively speaking, Sakamoto Yukio's active participation in China's semiconductor industry is not entirely due to personal "revenge."In 2022, during a media interview, he stated that against the backdrop of the global semiconductor industry's expansion, Chinese companies are also growing. Collaborating with Chinese enterprises and jointly developing devices that are more future-oriented is one of the options for Japanese semiconductor manufacturing equipment and materials companies. He believes that if Japanese companies, which are lagging behind European and American ones, collaborate with Chinese companies and fully leverage their numerical advantage, there is a possibility of overtaking European and American companies.

Despite warnings from some Japanese government and semiconductor industry insiders that "technology will only be taken away," Sakamoto Yukio still said, "I will be 73 years old by autumn, and this is my last chance. I hope to create a stage for young Japanese semiconductor technicians to showcase their abilities."

Only those who have experienced the Japan-US semiconductor wars can understand the profound meaning behind this statement. Ultimately, Sakamoto Yukio is still actively seeking new ways for Japanese companies to survive.

However, it is lamentable that around the time of Sakamoto Yukio's death, the Japanese government began to truly value semiconductors and invested a significant amount of funds in the field.

Sakamoto Yukio dedicated his life to the storage industry and passed away on February 14 of this year due to health issues, at the age of 77.

Having dedicated his entire life to the storage cause, Sakamoto Yukio is truly deserving of the title "Father of Japanese Semiconductors."