Gov Support
The government will shorten the site preparation period for the world’s largest system semiconductor industrial complex to be built in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province of Korea by two years. As governments in the United States, countries in the European Union (EU), Japan and other countries are scrambling to host semiconductor production bases in their countries, Korea’s central and local governments and companies are working as a team to expedite the mammoth-sized semiconductor cluster project in Korea.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, the Gyeonggi Provincial Government, the Yongin City Government, LH Corporation, and Samsung Electronics held a meeting of the Intergovernmental Promotion and Support Group at Samsung Electronics’ Giheung Campus in Yongin on June 27. They announced a support strategy for the creation of the Yongin Semiconductor Industrial Complex. The key is to cut down on the site construction period, which was originally expected to take about seven years, to five years. As a result, the Korean government plans to accelerate the completion of the site, which was initially expected to be in 2030, to 2028. Samsung Electronics will begin the construction of a full-scale semiconductor factory there as early as 2028.
Earlier, the Korean government and Samsung Electronics announced in March that they will invest 300 trillion won (US$230 billion) to build a system semiconductor mega-cluster on 7.1 million square meters of land in Namsayup, Yongin, by 2042. The cluster will include more than five Samsung Electronics semiconductor factories, about 150 Korean and foreign material, component, and equipment companies, fabless companies, and semiconductor research institutes.
The Korean government laid out an unprecedented deregulation and support plan. The plan aims to enable Korea to secure an advantageous position in the increasingly fierce global semiconductor war.
As semiconductors have emerged as a key to boosting a nation’s industrial competitiveness and economic security, the U.S., Japan, the EU, India, and other countries have offered huge subsidies and tax benefits. Taiwan’s TSMC and the United States’ Intel and Micron have announced plans to build new semiconductor fabs in various parts of the world.
SK hynix is also building a next-generation memory production base by investing 120 trillion won in the Wonsam town area of Yongin not far away from the site of the planned cluster. The chipmaker will break ground for the memory production base in 2025. Foundation work for the base began in 2022. More than 20,000 jobs are expected to be created when the first plant goes live in 2027.