JSR Corporation

Full briefing

JSR Corporation was founded in 1957 as Japan Synthetic Rubber Company and pivoted into semiconductor materials in the 1980s. Today it is one of the world's top three photoresist manufacturers alongside Shin-Etsu Chemical and Tokyo Ohka Kogyo (TOK), with approximately 20% of the advanced photoresist market. Its materials are used at TSMC, Samsung Foundry, and Intel Foundry to pattern circuits at 7nm, 5nm, 3nm, and 2nm-class nodes. Photoresist is the light-sensitive polymer coating spun onto a silicon wafer before each lithography exposure. For EUV lithography — the technology required for sub-7nm chips — the photoresist chemistry is extraordinarily complex: the polymer must respond to 13.5nm extreme ultraviolet light, achieve line-edge roughness below 2nm, and survive subsequent plasma etch processes without degrading. JSR's EUV photoresist formulations represent decades of proprietary chemistry developed in close collaboration with ASML and TSMC. In July 2023, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) orchestrated the privatization of JSR through the Japan Investment Corporation (JIC), a government-backed fund. The deal valued JSR at approximately ¥900 billion ($6 billion). METI's stated rationale was to consolidate Japan's semiconductor materials industry and protect strategic IP from foreign acquisition — an implicit acknowledgment that advanced photoresist is a geopolitical lever, not merely a commercial product. JSR's nationalization creates an unusual dynamic: a key supplier to TSMC, Samsung, and Intel is now effectively a Japanese government-controlled entity. Its export decisions, licensing terms, and technology roadmap can now be influenced by Japanese government industrial policy, giving Tokyo latent influence over global semiconductor production in a way analogous to China's rare-earth and gallium export controls.