Celebrating 80 Years of
SHINKO ELECTRIC
INDUSTRIES CO., LTD.

Our Origins in the Lightbulb Refurbishment Business

The origins of SHINKO can be traced back to the Nagano Branch of Fuji Electric Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (now Fuji Electric Co., Ltd.)'s Research Department, which had been relocated to Nagano City during World War Ⅱ to avoid the effects of the war. With the end of the war, the Nagano Branch faced closure. To protect employees' jobs and preserve its technologies and equipment, Koji Okuda (SHINKO's first president), Head of the Research Department, together with Plant Manager Takekio Mitsunobu and others, left Fuji Electric and established Nagano Katei Denki Saisei-jo, a limited partnership, in February 1946. Subsequently, in September 1946, the organization was reorganized and renamed as SHINKO ELECTRIC INDUSTRIES CO., LTD. The Company's name embodies the founders' hope for Japan's postwar recovery and their desire to become a "New Light" that would illuminate the future.

At the time, our primary business was breathing life into household lightbulbs by repairing their broken household filaments, allowing them to be used again. In today's terms, it was an early form of a recycling business. The metalworking and high hermeticity glass-to-metal sealing technologies that SHINKO cultivated from its founding would later evolve into our core technologies and be carried forward into today's semiconductor package manufacturing technologies. The spirit of manufacturing cultivated on the production floor, together with a commitment to challenging new technologies, forms the origin of SHINKO.

Transformation for the Future and the Blossoming of Technology

Japan's economy remained in turmoil and recession in the years following the Company's founding, and SHINKO also faced a management crisis as a result, but a surge in demand for lamps used in telecommunications equipment during a boom in special procurement demand helped turn the business around. Furthermore, the tide was beginning to shift toward a new era shaped by semiconductors. Driven by a strong determination to take on the semiconductor field with its own technologies, SHINKO decided to seek capital participation from Fujitsu Ltd. to strengthen the capital foundation for its next stage of growth. In 1957, backed by this investment, SHINKO opened the Kurita Plant, its first full-scale manufacturing plant. Subsequently, SHINKO began shipping glass-to-metal seals for transistors (TO-1) to Kobe Kogyo Corporation (now DENSO TEN Ltd.), marking the Company's full-scale entry into the semiconductor industry.

However, in 1961, SHINKO faced a major challenge when plating defects at an outsourced supplier caused significant losses for its customers. Confronted with this crisis, the Company chose to take on a major challenge: introducing state-of-the-art technology from the United States. The technology from GTI (Glass-Tite Industries) brought back by several young engineers who crossed the ocean became the foundation of SHINKO's surface treatment technologies and a major force for its future development.

Technologies Born from Challenges, Expanding Worldwide

With the start of the production of SHINKO's first IC package, the DIP-10, in 1966, SHINKO's technological innovation entered a new stage. To introduce leadframe stamping technology for the DIP-10, SHINKO dispatched engineers to Fujitsu Ltd. to acquire precision stamping die tool technology, and this challenge of mastering this new technology bore fruit with the shipment of the DIP-17, SHINKO's first leadframe for ICs, in 1969.

A major step into the global market came in 1971. Exports of glass-to-metal seals began in earnest following an order scribbled in pencil on a paper napkin during a dinner with a customer in the United States. Soon afterward, the dollar shock and the oil crisis dealt a severe blow to the Company's business. However, SHINKO overcame these challenges by implementing measures to ensure the Company's survival, such as wage reductions, temporary furloughs, and voluntary retirement programs, with financial support from Fujitsu Ltd.

Beginning with the establishment of a representative office in the United States in 1976, SHINKO expanded its sales and business locations across North America, Europe, and Asia. By building a global manufacturing and sales network, SHINKO grew into a company capable of meeting the needs and expectations of customers around the world.

Technology Taking Shape and the Road to a Public Listing for the Future

This was a time when, SHINKO took on the challenges of developing new products and expanding sales in pursuit of business growth. The accumulation of these challenges laid the foundation for the technological capabilities and business platform that supported the Company's subsequent growth.

Riding the wave of the rapidly expanding global semiconductor market, SHINKO's business recorded remarkable growth. To meet the rapidly growing demand, SHINKO focused on strengthening and expanding its production system through capital investment. Then, in 1984, with a view to securing access to financing for long-term business development and strengthening its corporate foundation, the Company made the decision to pursue a public listing in pursuit of further advancement and a more secure future.

On December 21 of the same year, SHINKO was listed on the Second Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. As the 11th publicly listed company in Nagano Prefecture, SHINKO moved forward into its next stage of growth on the global stage, with regional pride and a passion for technology.

Beyond Market Turbulence and the Birth of PLP

Amid the shocks of the 1985 recession triggered by yen appreciation and U.S.-Japan semiconductor trade friction, SHINKO endured by reducing costs and shifting toward higher-value-added products. During the subsequent Japan's bubble economy, the ceramic package business for mainframe computers and supercomputers grew substantially.

However, with the shift from supercomputers to smaller personal computers that became widely adopted, the market changed dramatically. As MPUs became increasingly high-density and lower in cost, the mainstream of semiconductor packaging rapidly shifted from ceramic to plastic packages.

Facing the greatest wave of technological transformation, SHINKO rose to the challenge. Leveraging the advanced technologies refined through its ceramics business, the Company developed a multilayer Plastic Laminate Package (PLP), paving the way for a new era. With the establishment of a mass production system at the Wakaho Plant in 1996, SHINKO gained a new growth engine for the future.

Environmental Protection Initiatives Carrying Forward the Founding Spirit

Amid the severe material shortages in postwar Japan, SHINKO began as a recycling business that refurbished lightbulbs. Since its founding, the spirit of environmental protection and respect for resources has been passed down through the generations at SHINKO.

Following the establishment of its Environmental Charter in 1994, SHINKO began obtaining ISO environmental certifications at all of its plants and publishing environmental reports. SHINKO has positioned environmental protection as one of its top management priorities and worked to create a sustainable society.

As a company deeply rooted in its local communities, SHINKO has conducted its business activities with a commitment to contributing to and growing together with local society. A symbolic of this commitment is the redevelopment of the Kurita Plant, which has been a part of SHINKO's history for half a century. With consideration for the residential environment surrounding the plant and a commitment to carrying forward coexistence with the local community into the future, the plant was transformed in 2004 into the Kurita Sogo Center, surrounded by lush greenery. This beautiful space, which received the Nagano City Landscape Award, remains a place of relaxation in the local community and continues to quietly convey SHINKO's spirit of coexistence.

Bold Investment for the Next Generation

Anticipating the rapid expansion of semiconductor demand driven by advances in IoT and AI, as well as the widespread adoption of 5G, SHINKO made a series of swift major investment decisions in growth markets. The construction of a new facility at the Takaoka Plant to strengthen production capacity for flip-chip type packages, the construction of a new facility at the Arai Plant for ceramic electrostatic chucks used in semiconductor manufacturing equipment, as well as capital investments in equipment for plastic BGA substrates, were carried out.

In 2021, SHINKO announced its largest-ever capital investment, totaling 140 billion yen. SHINKO established a new facility for ceramic electrostatic chucks at the Takaoka Plant and opened the state-of-the-art Chikuma Plant as a new production site for flip-chip type packages. As semiconductor devices continue to become increasingly larger and more sophisticated, the Chikuma Plant meets the growing demand for larger, multi-layer-count, and high-density semiconductor packages and continues to play a key role in driving SHINKO's future as a smart factory that centrally manages quality, equipment, and production information and as a green factory committed to environmental sustainability.

A New Step Toward the Future with New Capital

In 2025, SHINKO completed the privatization of its shares and the transition to a new capital structure. While faithfully carrying forward the technologies and manufacturing DNA cultivated since our founding, SHINKO has started as a renewed SHINKO under a new management structure.

And in 2026, SHINKO newly established its Mission, Vision, and Values (MVV) as a compass for further growth and advancement. In the rapidly changing global semiconductor market, all employees of Shinko Group are working in the same direction, striving to achieve sustainable growth and enhance corporate value.

Carrying forward the mission of delivering New Light, that has been passed down since our founding, SHINKO is now taking a bold step toward the future as an innovator supporting technological innovation around the world.