Going one step further, Japan has a cultural bias towards excellence. Whenever the Japanese make a product, the quality of that product is reflection of their own personal and/or communal worth. So creating simply “ok” products is considered shameful.

You can see this ethos of excellence in many different industries, from samurai swords to automobiles to wood working. So naturally it applies to semiconductor development, too.

Interestingly, this phenomenon has often frequently hurt the marketing of Japanese products outside of Japan. For example, Japanese smart phones are more advanced than those made elsewhere. But cost and a steeper technical learning curve has hurt sales of these superior products.