Government and Semiconductor Companies to Deal with Challenges Together

The South Korean government and South Korean companies formed a joint framework in order to deal with the ongoing challenges in the semiconductor industry with a global shortage of chips seriously affecting the production of automobiles, smartphones and consumer electronics and competition for industrial hegemony intensifying worldwide.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and others in the industry signed a memorandum of understanding and launched their alliance in Seoul on Sept. 28. The alliance consists of 30 persons representing the semiconductor manufacturers including Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, material, component and equipment suppliers, fabless and foundry companies, and research institutes.

The members of the alliance are going to co-develop advanced materials, components and equipment and the fabless and foundry companies will utilize intellectual properties and produce prototypes together for next-generation system-on-chip development. The research institutes will support them and the ministry will facilitate their collaboration with new policies.

The alliance will respond to the pressure from the U.S., Chinese and other governments, too. The U.S. government recently told global semiconductor companies to submit their confidential information by Nov. 8. “The South Korean and U.S. governments are increasing their dialogue on supply chain issues,” the ministry explained, implying that it can help deal with the issues.