SK Group, South Korea‘s second-largest conglomerate by assets, has completed a $150 million deal to buy a stake in US energy solution firm Atom Power, according to the group Thursday. The group’s affiliates, holding company SK Inc. and oil refinery SK Energy, have purchased the undisclosed amount of the controlling stake. Atom Power, based in Huntersville, North Carolina, is dedicated to semiconductor chip-powered solid-state digital circuit breakers for customized control of ele

A next-generation secondary battery joint venture backed by South Korean manufacturers including Eurocell has been in talks with the Netherlands authorities to pick the nation as the site for its first European gigafactory, according to the company Thursday. The Anglo-Korean joint venture Eurocell EMEA, based in Birmingham, the United Kingdom, is expected to build the new facility in two phases following a total of $800 million investment by 2025. “With rapid expansion plans in Europe,

South Korean chip design house LX Semicon is seeking shareholder approval for a delisting from the stock market’s Kosdaq development board and a listing on the main board Kospi, filings showed Thursday. LX Semicon, a chipmaker dedicated to display driver integrated circuits for TVs and mobile phones, is scheduled to hold an extraordinary shareholder meeting on Sept. 23 at its headquarters in Daejeon. The listing change earned board approval Wednesday, 13 years after the listing on the Ko

German electronics technology firm Merck announced Wednesday that it has signed a deal to acquire the semiconductor-grade industrial gas and chemical operation of Korea-based listed company Mecaro for 110 million euros ($111.9 million). The transaction will involve business assets dedicated to chemical precursors used in thin film deposition for semiconductors, as well as some 100 employees. Mecaro is expected to split off the chemical business for the deal. The cash deal is expected to be clo

Yeo Min-soo and Joh Su-yong, who stepped down from top seats of mobile internet giant Kakao Corp. earlier this year, were highest paid executives in South Korea in the first half of this year, filings showed Wednesday. Joh was disclosed to have been compensated 36.15 billion won ($27.59 million), while Yeo was paid 33.22 billion won, by the company dedicated to mobile messengers, gaming and entertainment, during the January-June period in 2022, according to filings submitted with the Financial

Samsung is envisioning a change in governance structure as a presidential pardon has virtually normalized de facto leader Lee Jae-yong’s control over the nation’s largest conglomerate. Lee Chan-hee, chief of Samsung’s independent compliance oversight committee, told the press before the committee’s regular meeting Tuesday that it is “working to address the corporate governance issue” of Samsung, while declining to elaborate further on the proceedings. &ldqu

Samsung Electronics announced Tuesday that it has launched the world’s largest curved gaming monitor -- at 55 inches -- that wraps around users’ field of view to bring their gaming experience to the next level. “A curved monitor gives users a fully immersive experience if viewed from the distance of 80 centimeters, as a flat monitor would cover less of a user‘s peripheral vision,” Chung Kang-il, vice president of visual display at Samsung Electronics, said at a pre

President Yoon Suk-yeol’s decision to grant a special pardon on Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong on Friday is expected to speed up his return to leadership of Korea’s largest family-controlled chaebol and the world’s largest memory chipmaker. Set to be granted on Aug. 15 Liberation Day, the clemency will lift the employment restriction placed on him that was effective until 2027. This would open the door for the 54-year-old third-generation chaebol chief to be promoted to the chairma

Samsung Electronics mobile head, Roh Tae-moon, said the South Korean tech giant looks to target wider audiences with its Galaxy foldable phones in a bid to address the sluggish growth of its premium smartphones and macroeconomic headwinds, in a press conference held Wednesday, in New York. As the clamshell-type Galaxy Z Flip and book-type Galaxy Z Fold evolve, the combined shipments of two models by the world’s largest foldable phone maker will outsize that of other Galaxy premium smartp

Samsung Electronics, a chips-to-smartphones company, said Wednesday it plans to roll out its clamshell Galaxy Z Flip 4 and foldable Galaxy Z Fold 4 on Aug. 26 in South Korea, the United States and Europe. Both the Z Flip 4, a more affordable version of the Samsung premium phone that would deploy foldable form factors, and the Z Fold 4, a workspace-dedicated tabletlike device, will boast enhanced camera features and chipsets that power them. The Z Flip 4 and Z Fold 4 will deploy a new mobile ch

The heavier burden of corporate taxes and cost per hire are weighing on South Korean chipmaking giants like Samsung Electronics, indicating the unfavorable conditions leave them behind competitors like Taiwan-based TSMC amid intensifying semiconductor competition worldwide, according to a local think tank Wednesday. Korea sets the maximum rate of the corporate tax at 25 percent -- imposed on taxable income of large business entities like Samsung -- as a result of a tax hike by 3 percentage poi

South Korea’s trade deficit with China is likely to persist for the time being, unless Korea strives to achieve supply chain independence from China, according to a report by lobby group Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Tuesday. The growing reliance on China over key materials used for Korean semiconductor or battery manufacturing signals Seoul‘s need to upgrade its free trade agreement terms with China as cost attractiveness of Chinese goods will continue to deteriorate Ko

South Korean lithium-ion battery cell makers are expected to be beneficiaries once the Inflation Reduction Act comes into force in the United States, as the bill is likely to induce US electric vehicle makers to cut their reliance on Chinese battery components. But at the same time, Korean battery makers are now pressured to preemptively diversify their import sources of key materials out of China, as the new US bill is apparently aimed at countering China’s influence on the EV supply cha

Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn’s wife, Suh Yung-min, died at 61 at a hospital in the United States on Sunday, as she was suffering from cancer, the group said Tuesday. Suh is survived by Kim, who leads South Korea‘s seventh-largest conglomerate dedicated to chemicals, renewable energy and finance, and their three sons, Dong-kwan, Dong-won and Dong-sun. Suh, who studied pharmaceuticals at Seoul National University, was the daughter of five-term lawmaker Suh Chung-hwa, who fo

South Korea is poised to join a working-level meeting of government officials involving major chipmaking nations along with the United States, Taiwan and Japan, amid mounting concerns over China’s retaliation. Seoul has had to tread carefully around Beijing, as memory chip giants such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix fear that its chipmaking base in China might be affected by Seoul‘s decision to join the so-called “Chip 4” alliance. President Yook Suk-yeol told repo

SK hynix’s 121.7 trillion won ($93.8 billion) plan to set up a semiconductor manufacturing cluster is facing an unexpected hurdle as the South Korean chipmaking giant is being denied a request for water usage from a city adjacent to the cluster’s location in Greater Seoul. The city of Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, is demanding greater compensation in exchange for letting SK hynix build underground pipes needed to transport massive amounts of water crucial for producing next-generation

South Korean telecommunications firm KT and its Turkish counterpart Turk Telekom have signed a strategic partnership to foster collaboration in the field of media content to private fifth-generation network setup and joint investment in startups, KT announced Sunday. This is a follow-up to the nonbinding memorandum of understanding for cooperation between the two companies at the Mobile World Congress in March. According to KT, the new deal will give users of Turk Telekom‘s internet pro

Memory chip giant Samsung Electronics said Wednesday it unveiled a set of next-generation memory and storage technologies to better address various client demands for handling big data. Choi Jin-hyeok, executive vice president of memory solution and product development at Samsung Electronics, told an audience at the Flash Memory Summit 2022 that the array of technologies, including “perabyte storage,” “memory-semantic solid state drive” and “telemetry” is cru

SK hynix said Tuesday that it had unveiled plans to mass-produce the industry‘s first 238-layer four-dimensional NAND flash memory in the first half of 2023. At the Flash Memory Summit of 2022 held in Santa Clara, California, Choi Jung-dal, head of NAND development at SK hynix, said the newest NAND flash, which boasts the highest layer count and highest triple-level cell density in the industry, has been sampled by clients after the development was complete in July. The technological br

South Korean lawmakers are poised to propose a new bill aimed at providing domestic chipmakers with more extensive tax benefits in return for facility investment, a step toward its own version of the US-passed CHIPS Act to be effective Thursday. The new bill, unveiled Tuesday by a group of lawmakers led by independent lawmaker Rep. Yang Hyang-ja, is designed to triple the tax incentives for chipmakers, an apparent move to encourage more investment from semiconductor players. At least 20 perce