Atsuyoshi Koike

ATSUYOSHI KOIKE established Rapidus Corporation, a company that researches, develops, designs, manufactures, and sells advanced logic semiconductors, in August 2022. 

Prior to this role, Koike had served as President of Western Digital Japan since April 2018 and supervised its business in Japan, which includes responsibility for the operational leadership of the company’s highly successful NAND flash-memory joint ventures with Kioxia Corporation (“KIC”).  He also served as a director with authority to represent all Japan-based Western Digital legal entities.

Koike had served as senior vice president covering technology and fab operations since 2006. He led Western Digital’s SanDisk Japan operations, including overseeing the company’s leading-edge 2D NAND and 3D NAND R&D and manufacturing operations in Japan. 

Koike has over 40 years of experience driving innovations in the semiconductor industry. Prior to joining Western Digital, he served as corporate chief engineer for Renesas Technology Corporation. Previously, he held the position of president and chief executive officer, as well as other senior leadership positions at Trecenti Technologies, Inc., where he successfully established the world’s first 300mm wafer fab featuring all single wafer processing. Prior to that, he held senior manufacturing management and executive leadership positions at Hitachi, Ltd., where he focused on technological development in the semiconductor division, contributing to pivotal technological innovations for its mainstream semiconductor products for about two decades. 

Koike received the B.S. and M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Waseda University and Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering from Tohoku University. He is a Senior Specially Appointed Professor of Management of Technology at Tokyo University of Science and has given lectures at the University of Tokyo and Tohoku University.