The Kyushu Institute of Technology’s School of Computer Science and Systems Engineering, located on gently rolling hills in Iizuka, Fukuoka Prefecture, is offering courses for working adults in an effort to revive semiconductor manufacturing in the Kyushu region.
The school, established in 1986 with an aim to revitalize the region which had lost its vigor with the deterioration of the coal mining industry, is now trying again to regain lost ground in the region which had been touted as the “silicon island.”
The attempt is spearheaded by a researcher who, as an employee of a major manufacturer, experienced fierce competition with rival companies in the 1980s when Japan-made chips dominated the global market and also witnessed the rise of foreign companies.