Employees of Samsung Electronics Co. check equipment of the clean room of its semiconductor production facility. (image: Samsung Electronics)
SEOUL, Jan. 16 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s industry minister said Tuesday the government plans to unveil a plan to foster the local fabless sector in line with efforts to bolster the competitiveness of the semiconductor industry.
The remark came after South Korea announced its plan this week to build a “semiconductor mega cluster” in southern Gyeonggi Province, which is expected to be completed in 2047 with an investment of 622 trillion won (US$473 billion) from Samsung Electronics Co., SK hynix Inc. and other companies.
“We plan to proactively reflect opinions from the industry as the government draws and implements related policies,” Industry Minister Ahn Duk-geun said during his visit to the headquarters of Telechips Inc., a local fabless firm based in Seongnam, south of Seoul.
“We will come up with measures to beef up the competitiveness of the fabless industry within the first half,” he added.
Fabless firms are chip companies that design but do not have manufacturing facilities of their own, and foundry businesses produce products for such firms.
The industry ministry said the government will come up with additional measures to support the launch of new products and technologies by local fabless firms, including building shared testbeds.
The government will extend subsidies to support the production of premium prototype chips manufactured using processes under 10 nanometers as well, it added. This represents an expansion from the current support limited to chips with a 10-nanometer or higher process.
(Yonhap)
