Mitsui Kinzoku to Invest ¥190 Billion in Copper Foil Expansion
2026-11-11
Mitsui Kinzoku announced on November 10 that it will invest ¥190 billion to purchase land near its existing Malaysian base and build a new copper foil plant, with phased production starting in April 2031. Of the investment, ¥144 billion will go to production equipment, ¥32 billion to plant construction, and ¥14 billion to land acquisition, funded by a combination of internal funds and borrowings. This is another move by Mitsui Kinzoku to step up high-end copper foil, following an expansion plan aimed at 2030 announced in August.
Two Products
The new plant focuses mainly on two types of copper foil—MicroThin and VSP. Their usage accounts for a limited share of the complete-system BOM, but if they are missing or fail to meet specifications, downstream production lines cannot proceed.MicroThin is a carrier-supported ultra-thin copper foil with a copper layer about 1.5 to 5 micrometers thick. It is used for fine-line formation in semiconductor packaging substrates and supports the mSAP process—first electroplating circuits on ultra-thin copper foil, then removing the thin copper outside the circuits to reduce line width and spacing. As AI optical modules upgrade from 800G to 1.6T, mSAP shifts from an optional to a mandatory process, and MicroThin’s supply elasticity directly affects the capacity ramp-up of optical module PCBs.
VSP is electrolytic copper foil for high-frequency circuit boards. Its core metric is surface smoothness—the copper deposition morphology is controlled to reduce high-frequency signal loss in PCB transmission—and it is used in servers, routers, switches, and other communications infrastructure. It has a high technical threshold, long customer qualification cycles, and high switching costs.
Capacity Layout and Timing
Under the plan, by fiscal 2033 MicroThin monthly capacity will reach 12 million square meters, 2.4 times the fiscal 2025 level; VSP monthly capacity will reach 2,600 tons, 3.6 times. If demand continues to rise, the newly purchased land can support further expansion to 3,600 tons per month, and combined with other bases, up to 5,000 tons.
The timeline merits attention. The 12 million square meters of MicroThin is a fiscal 2033 target, and in August Mitsui had just raised its 2030 MicroThin capacity target from 5.6 million to 8 million square meters; the new plant is additional to that basis. From fiscal 2025 to fiscal 2033, capacity increases to 2.4 times over eight years.
Note that Furukawa Electric announced the next day a production increase plan for the same type of copper foil, targeting capacity at the end of fiscal 2029 to double that at the end of fiscal 2026.
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