Why Is Samsung Electronics Alone Invited to White House Meeting?

A White House meeting to discuss how to cope with the ongoing global chip shortage is scheduled for April 12. At present, Samsung Electronics is the only non-U.S. company on the open list of invitees.

SK Hynix, second-largest in the DRAM market and fifth-largest in the NAND market, is unlikely to join the meeting. “This has to do with what the White House is concentrating on,” said an industry insider, adding, “The shortage that started late last year is related to foundry products, such as automotive chips, smartphone APs, PC GPUs and display driver chips, rather than memory chips.”

Although SK Hynix System IC, its subsidiary in the foundry industry, is running foundry facilities in Wuxi, China, the annual sales of the subsidiary stood at 702.9 billion won last year. In addition, SK Hynix is currently in no position to make a large-scale foundry investment in its process of acquiring Intel’s NAND flash business.

As of the end of last year, TSMC topped the global foundry market, followed by Samsung Electronics with a market share of 17 percent. Two possibilities have been mentioned when it comes to the Taiwanese company. One is that the White House did not invite it and the other is that its name is on the list and the White House is not considering it necessary to open the name.

“Both possibilities reflect the bilateral relations between the United States and Taiwan and those between Taiwan and China,” said a trade expert, adding, “The United States and China are very close allies and TSMC already announced its plans for facility expansion in the United States unlike Samsung Electronics.”

It is said that the invitation of Samsung Electronics was inevitable in that it is the largest memory chip manufacturer and second-largest foundry in the world. “It seems that the importance of the KORUS alliance and the Joe Biden administration’s anti-China scenarios in the semiconductor industry also led to the invitation,” said an industry source, adding, “Both the United States and China are very important for Samsung Electronics and the company is feeling uncomfortable with its name on the open list.”