South Korean chipmaker SK hynix said Tuesday it has completed the acquisition of domestic contract-based chip manufacturer Key Foundry The announcement came nine months after SK hynix signed a 575.8 billion won ($440.3 million) deal in October to acquire the entire stake of the 200-millimeter wafer foundry company based in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, from local private equity firms Alchemist Capital Partners and Gravity Private Equity. SK hynix added that it has won the antitru

South Korean memory chip maker SK hynix said Monday it has sampled the first memory product under the compute express link memory interface, a concept considered a game-changer in the electronics industry that is facing memory storage bottleneck. The announcement heralds SK hynix‘s long-awaited move to enter the market and roll out expandable CXL memory products for servers by 2023, according to the world’s second-largest DRAM chip maker. CXL is a newly-emerging semiconductor stand

South Korean petrochemical firm SK Geo Centric has started construction on a facility to produce semiconductor wafer surface washing material with Tokyo-based chemical firm Tokuyama in Ulsan, a city some 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, the company announced Monday. SK Geo Centric aims to produce some 30,000 tons of semiconductor-grade high-purity isopropyl alcohol each year through a 50:50 joint venture with Tokuyama called Stac beginning in 2024. Isopropyl alcohol is the material used to c

South Korean lithium-ion battery cell maker SK On announced Thursday that it plans to attract a combined $2 billion loan to ramp up its push for a new battery plant in Europe. The green financing will come from seven commercial banks with three export credit agencies -- Korea Trade Insurance Corp., Export-Import Bank of Korea and Allianz Trade (formerly known as Euler Hermes) -- supporting loans, loan guarantees and insurance. The borrowing will go to SK On‘s third European battery plant

Samsung Electronics logged an operating profit of 14.1 trillion won ($10.77 billion) during the second quarter, up 12.2 percent from the previous year despite rising material prices and recession fears that are weakening consumer demands, the company said Thursday. The South Korean tech giant’s quarterly revenue from April to June came to 77.2 trillion won, up 21.3 percent from a year prior, slightly beating the market consensus of 77 trillion won. The quarterly sales figure was the seco

Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor chip foundry business looks to help select smaller chip design houses to create prototypes and validate the pre-production concepts of their own chips. According to the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Samsung will offer multi-project wafer shuttle services to five fabless companies -- DeepX, GLS, SKAi Chips, Semibrain and Raontech -- with the government partially subsidizing the program. The five startups were chosen after a monthlong selection process.

South Korean battery material firm LG Chem announced Wednesday plans to supply at least 950,000 tons of cathode active materials used for electric vehicles to General Motors over the next eight years, which would be enough for some 5 million units. Under the long-term supply agreement, LG Chem will supply cathode materials of nickel, cobalt, manganese and aluminum -- which represent about 40 percent of the cost of a battery cell -- starting the second half of 2022 through 2030. According to

The Chinese Ambassador to South Korea urged a Korean lawmaker who leads a parliamentary semiconductor committee to exclude “external interference” in chip supply chains and for closer bilateral cooperation in chips, according to the Chinese embassy in Seoul. “China is willing to work with South Korea under the principle of a fair and just market, eliminate external interference, strengthen cooperation in semiconductors and other fields, and jointly maintain the stability of th

LG Energy Solution said Tuesday it looks to set up its first South Korean-Chinese joint battery cell recycling facilities in China for stable supply of key battery materials from battery manufacturing scraps and used batteries. LG Energy Solution, Korea’s largest lithium-ion battery manufacturer by production capacity, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt to launch a joint venture for the new recycling plant by the end of this year, according to its releas

Samsung Electronics’ contract-based chip manufacturing operations have surpassed Taiwan-based foundry rival TSMC in terms of smartphone chipset shipments on advanced nodes in the first quarter, data showed Sunday. Samsung captured some 60 percent of market share in the leading nodes of 5-nanometer or more sophisticated manufacturing process for chipsets going to smartphones from application processors to system-on-chips in the first quarter, according to data by market intelligence Count

The growing call on South Korea to participate in the United States-led chip alliance across East Asia is putting the semiconductor powerhouse, home to Samsung and SK hynix, again in a strategic dilemma. Sitting in the crosshairs of US-China economic warfare, Korea is being pressured to choose a side by joining the new semiconductor alliance of the US, Taiwan and Japan, with Korea making up the fourth in the so-called “Chip 4.” Alternatively, Korea might choose not to join them, con

Chip-to-smartphone giant Samsung Electronics said Thursday it has unveiled the industry’s fastest GDDR6-standard memory chips for next-generation graphics cards, using the cutting-edge extreme ultraviolet photolithography process. The newest third-generation 10 nanometer-class GDDR6 DRAM is designed to deliver 30 percent faster processing speeds than its predecessor, as they feature 24 gigabits-per-second data transfer rate per pin. The predecessor, featuring speeds of 18 Gbps, has been m

United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is poised to hold talks with South Korea‘s key financial policymakers, raising market expectations of a possible currency swap amid the growing strength of the US dollar against the local currency.　 Her two-day visit to Korea on July 19-20 will take place immediately after the Group of 20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting in Bali, Indonesia, scheduled from Friday to Saturday. During her visit, the secretary will also visit L

South Korean chemical firm SK Innovation said Wednesday it has made a $20 million equity investment in US renewable fuels firm Fulcrum BioEnergy. Fulcrum has commercialized a process to produce synthetic oil for transportation by gasifying household waste. With the fresh capital, Fulcrum is expected to reach Asian markets, including Korea, under an exclusive licensing agreement with SK Innovation. Fulcrum began its initial operations of its inaugural biorefinery, the Sierra BioFuels Plant l

Flat-panel displays usually come together with semiconductor chips as they are both considered basic elements of the most of the electronic devices in the world. But with the Yoon Suk-yeol administration placing its policy focus on semiconductor chips and as Yoon pivots toward “economic security” based on the Korea-United States alliance, South Korea’s display panel business has largely been sidelined. Experts say such shift could end up endangering Korea’s foothold in

The personal fortune of Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman and de facto leader Lee Jae-yong has decreased by over 2 trillion won ($1.54 billion) during the first half of 2022 as shares of key Samsung affiliates tumbled due to bearish stock market in Korea, data showed Tuesday. As a result, the total worth of Lee’s combined stake in Samsung affiliates fell to 12.03 trillion won as of end-June, from 14.19 trillion won in January, according to data by market intelligence Korea CXO Institute.

A 6:30 a.m. commute bus, three nutritious meals a day at the cafeteria and a pride that runs deep for being a part of South Korea‘s largest and richest conglomerate have been among many features that captured the “Samsung man” -- trained to fit into the gigantic and somewhat militant organization. A shared goal of maintaining Samsung’s superiority has united its 270,000-member workforce so far, not to mention its hefty year-end incentives and other financial benefits fr

South Korean lithium-ion automotive battery maker LG Energy Solution announced Sunday that its Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman Kwon Young-soo has embarked on a trip to Europe to support the company’s push for the automation of manufacturing. Kwon left Seoul on Sunday with he plans to visit Wroclaw, southwestern Poland, where LG Energy Solution’s 70-gigawatt-hour battery plant is located, according to the company based in Seoul. The Wroclaw location has annually produced

As consumers tend to buy products based on their experience, a product designer should understand the basic needs of a human to come up with a creative design that catapults a product’s mass market appeal, head of a design school under South Korea‘s largest conglomerate told a conference Wednesday. Lee Don-tae, president of Samsung Art and Design Institute, speaking at The Korea Herald’s Global Business Forum in Seoul, said the key to achieve design originality for commercial

The South Korean government on Monday announced a five-year plan to spend a combined 1.02 trillion won ($794.8 million) in semiconductor chip research and development to maintain its competitive edge in the global chip market. The spending package in the country, home to memory chip powerhouses Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, is aimed at securing a stronger footing in the field of artificial intelligence chips, mainly by developing libraries and compiler software to encourage wider usage of d