South Korea's semiconductor industry may usher in major changes?
The semiconductor industry has always been a pillar industry in South Korea, so South Korea attaches great importance to research in this field, and there are several world-renowned semiconductor companies in the country, especially Samsung, SK hynix, etc., which occupy a considerable proportion in memory chips.
However, South Korea's dependence on nuclear technology is also the reason why Samsung and SK hynix are unable to export. But no one expected South Korea to make such a decision. South Korea will invest a lot of money in research on its own nuclear technology and spend more money to produce its own chips.
The United States previously banned the export of high-end chips, including chips, equipment and raw materials. Due to the chip ban in the United States, companies such as Samsung, SK hynix, and TSMC are unable to produce advanced chips, nor can they provide chips to some Chinese companies.
Huawei is TSMC's second largest customer, and TSMC will certainly not miss the opportunity to cooperate with Huawei, but due to the ban on American wafer companies, TSMC can only produce Huawei's ** wafers. Samsung, SK hynix and other South Korean semiconductor companies face the same dilemma, with no free access to the continent** products or capacity expansion.
South Korea has made a big decision to spend 622 billion won to build the world's largest semiconductor company, as reported some time ago. Over the next few years, 16 fabs will be built, with 7.7 million wafers per month produced by 2030.
South Korea also acknowledges that its tablet industry has been reliant on foreign powers. This is also the reason why South Korean tablet companies such as Samsung and SK hynix are so dependent on American technology that they have to obey the fundamental ban of the United States even if they do not want to give up the Chinese market.
This situation has also led to significant losses in the Chinese market, as South Korean companies are already mass-producing chips in China, and South Korean companies have even built several chip factories in China.
Samsung is one of the biggest losers in South Korea's semiconductor industry. According to Samsung's 2023 financial report released some time ago, the company's semiconductor division lost 13 trillion won, or about 70 billion yuan. In 2022, Samsung surpassed Intel to become the most profitable semiconductor company in the world.
Moreover, in April 2023, Samsung was noted"Patent Infringement"Being fined 400 billion won by the United States, which is equivalent to almost all of Samsung's revenue in a quarter, is a huge loss.
Not only Samsung, but also SK Hynix, another large semiconductor company in South Korea, has also suffered huge losses due to the wafer production ban. While SK Hynix was able to expand its production capacity in South Korea due to a permanent exemption, imports of EUV lithography machines remain restricted.
Currently, some of SK hynix's memory chips have reached the 10nm processing level, but they cannot be mass-produced by deep ultraviolet lithography alone. This also means that if SK hynix cannot import deep UV lithography technology from China, it will have to build a factory or produce it in China.
In any case, this situation will not end well for SK Hynix, as the company will have to spend a lot of money to rebuild the factory. In this unfortunate situation, SK hynix will have to ship EUV lithography machine parts to South Korea and then back to China.
The core ban of the United States made South Korean semiconductor companies suffer a lot of losses in the end, because the Korean semiconductor industry is too dependent on American technology.
This also rings for us"Alarm bells"Without nuclear technology, there is no way out of the dilemma of being stifled. If Chinese chips want to make a difference, they can no longer have illusions about European and American companies, and must invest more money in independent research and development.
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