The World's No. 1 Player in Etching Equipment
Lam Research, a global semiconductor equipment company, will move its R&D center to Korea, Korean media outlets reported.
Lam Research has recently decided to move its R&D center to Korea at a meeting of its board of directors, they said. For this purpose, Lam Research will reportedly invest 180 billion won in Korea for three years and recruit 500 researchers.
Lam Research is a global semiconductor equipment company with more than 10 trillion won in annual sales. The company is the world's No. 1 player in etching equipment that makes circuit patterns on semiconductor wafers by selectively removing unnecessary parts. It is one of the world's top three semiconductor equipment companies along with Applied Materials of the United States and ASML of the Netherlands.
Lam Research has decided to relocate its R&D center to Korea in an effort to jointly develop future technologies with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which are the top two semiconductor makers in the world, industry insiders say. They say that Lam Research believes that Korean companies will lead the future memory semiconductor market in the world. In particular, it plans to actively cooperate and develop new products and technology with Korean companies of semiconductor materials, parts and equipment.
In addition to Lam Research, Applied Materials is reportedly considering opening an R&D center in Korea.
Global semiconductor equipment makers' relocation of R&D centers to Korea is expected to be a great help to the Korean semiconductor industry, which is facing challenges from companies in the United States, Japan and Taiwan. Given the importance of semiconductors for the Korean economy, it is expected to be of great help not only for the Korean semiconductor industry but for the entire Korean economy.