Kunpeng Project
The de-beautification plan of the Korean semiconductor market has been launched, and a new round of competition is about to break out
South Korea's "whitewashing" plan was officially launched, and a new wave of competition has begun!
South Korea has always been dominated by semiconductors, so South Korea attaches great importance to the development of semiconductor technology, and many well-known semiconductor companies are gathered here, such as Samsung, SK hynix, etc., almost monopolizing most of the world's memory industry.
However, due to South Korea's high dependence on some key technologies, Samsung has not been able to offer freedom to SK hynix. Surprisingly, South Korea has taken steps to address the problem and is spending a lot of money on its own technology research and development, while they are expanding their own chip production.
The United States has earlier implemented controls on advanced wafers, wafer technology, semiconductor components, semiconductor raw materials and other related technologies, components and equipment. Due to the U.S. ban on chips, Samsung, SK hynix and TSMC are unable to offer advanced wafers to many Chinese companies or sign contracts with them.
Huawei is TSMC's second largest customer, and TSMC is certainly reluctant to give up its relationship with Huawei, but Huawei's chip manufacturing plan has been interrupted due to the chip blockade in the United States. South Korean semiconductor companies such as Samsung and SK hynix are also facing the same problem, they are not free to give China and expand production capacity.
Earlier, South Korea reported that South Korea will invest 622 trillion won to build the world's largest semiconductor company. Over the next few years, Intel intends to build 16 new fabs and expects to reach 7.7 million wafers by 2030.
South Korea has also previously claimed that its chip industry is not particularly advanced, but it is heavily dependent on foreign countries in some key technologies. South Korean semiconductor companies such as Samsung and SK hynix, in the case of extreme reliance on American technology, can only reluctantly accept the US "core ban" even if they are reluctant to accept the Chinese market.
Don't forget that China is the main supplier of chips to South Korean companies, and even South Korean companies have built a large number of chip factories in China.
In South Korea, Samsung is one of the hardest hit semiconductor companies. Samsung's recently released 2023 fiscal year annual report shows that Samsung lost 13 trillion won, equivalent to about 7 billion yuan. Don't forget that in 2022, Samsung once surpassed Intel as the most profitable semiconductor company in the world.
In addition, the United States** is also due to"Patent Infringement"Samsung was fined four billion yuan, which is almost the sum of all the company's profits in the previous quarter.
Not only Samsung, but another South Korean semiconductor giant, SK Hynix, has also been hit hard by the chip embargo. Although SK hynix has temporarily obtained a permanent license to expand its production capacity in the mainland region, the company has limited itself to the introduction of far-ultraviolet lithography equipment.
Some of SK hynix's memory chips have reached the 10nm process level, and cannot be mass-produced with deep violet lithography technology alone. This means that if SK hynix's Chinese mainland plant does not have access to EUV lithography technology, then SK hynix will have to build a new plant in Chinese mainland, while Chinese mainland plant can only produce more advanced chips.
In SK Hynix's view, either option is not going to end well. In this painful situation, SK hynix had no choice but to bring back its Korean lithography machine from its head office in China and return to its domestic factory to continue manufacturing.
Needless to say, the U.S. ban on nuclear power has dealt a heavy blow to South Korean semiconductor companies. This is because South Korea's semiconductor industry is overly dependent on U.S. technology.
This"Admonishment"We can't get out of this situation unless we have the necessary technology. If China really wants to make a breakthrough in integrated circuits, it must abandon its expectations of the United States and European and American companies and increase investment in domestic technology.
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