Sony is good at many things, but its strength in manufacturing has always kept the money rolling in when other ventures weren’t so healthy. Now, the company is teaming up with chip giant TSMC on a new joint venture in Japan to build the next generation of image sensors. The news suggests Sony will lead the project, based at Sony’s newly-built facility in Koshi City, but leveraging TSMC’s “strengths in process technology and manufacturing excellence.” Both companies also have one hand out in front of the Japanese government in the hope of some further financial incentives. The move is part of CEO Hiroki Totoki’s plan to sever the company from its physical assets to focus more on IP. That strategy has already seen the company pull out of TV manufacturing, handing control of its Bravia division to TCL. That said, with the advent of stacking, image sensors are becoming far more complex and it’s likely Sony felt it needed TSMC’s muscle to ensure it didn’t get left behind.
According to Bloomberg, Totoki said the move was the “first step to becoming fab-light,” meaning Sony is looking to further reduce its in-house manufacturing footprint. If Sony and TSMC are able to combine their respective strengths, then the move could certainly boost the future of image sensors for cameras, vehicles and other applications further down the line. It’s easy to argue Sony makes the gold standard imaging sensor right now, given you can find them in the latest iPhone, Pixel and OnePlus handsets. Hell, its sensors are so good they’re even used by a big chunk of the camera industry, including Nikon, Fujifilm, Leica, DJI and Blackmagic. The risk, of course, is that those other companies simply opt to bypass Sony and go straight to TSMC for their future image sensor needs.