South Korea would seek to invest 1 trillion won (US$853.8 million) annually in developing home-grown materials and equipment used to produce microchips, a senior lawmaker said yesterday, after Japan tightened curbs on exports of some high-tech materials to the nation.
Japan on Monday said that it would tighten regulations on exports of materials used in smartphone displays and chips to South Korea amid a widening dispute over South Koreans who were forced to work for Japanese firms during World War II.
“We are doing a preliminary feasibility analysis [on the investment],” South Korean Legislator Cho Jeong-sik from the Democratic Party told reporters after meeting with officials from the presidential office and government ministries to discuss a response to Japan’s decision.
The export curbs could hamper production of South Korea’s chip giants Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc, as the two chemicals targeted are essential, analysts said.
Data firm IHS Markit said that the Japanese trade restrictions would add to global trade tensions.
Asian exporters are already being strained by a prolonged slowdown in the global electronics sectors.
“A reduction or elimination in the availability of these materials will significantly impede the production of memory and other semiconductor chips, impacting major semiconductor manufacturers, including Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix,” IHS Markit executive director of semiconductor research Len Jelinek said in a note.
The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Tuesday said that its decision to tighten controls was not a contravention of the WTO, rebuffing South Korea’s earlier claims.
Cho shrugged off criticism in local media that the government is not laying out countermeasures swiftly, but he did not provide further details on the nature of the spending.
Shares in South Korean chip materials makers jumped after the government’s spending plan was made public.
Shares of Ram Technology Inc and Ocean Bridge Co Ltd, local firms producing chemicals used in chip manufacturing process, rose as much as 20 percent and 15 percent respectively.
This week’s undoing of the TerraUSD algorithmic stablecoin and its sister token, Luna, has ramifications for all of crypto. First, there is the immediate impact: The rapid collapse of a once-popular pair of cryptocurrencies sent a ripple effect across the industry, contributing to plummeting coin prices that wiped hundreds of billions of market value from the digital-asset market and stoked worries over the potential fragility of digital-asset ventures. Then there are the knock-on effects. In addition to delivering punishing losses to individual users and investment firms, the spectacular failure of a market darling like Terra threatens to have a cooling effect
material SHORTAGE: Even as workers are about to return, Quanta lacks operating supplies, while Pegatron reported its lowest revenues in 11 quarters, the companies said Taiwan’s major Apple Inc supplier cut its outlook for the second quarter, joining a growing list of manufacturers warning about the fallout from lockdowns aimed at containing China’s worst COVID-19 outbreak in two years. Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), which assembles MacBooks, expects a 20 percent quarterly fall in notebook shipments and a squeeze on margins this quarter due to the lockdown, a company representative said on Friday during an earnings call. The impact from supply chain disruptions could last until the end of the year, she said. The company’s Shanghai factory has been operating under tight restrictions since the middle of last month,
The US and the EU were yesterday to announce a joint effort aimed at identifying semiconductor supply disruptions as well as countering Russian disinformation, officials said. Top US officials are visiting the French scientific hub of Saclay for a meetup of the Trade and Technology Council, created last year as China increasingly exerts its technology clout. US officials acknowledged that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has broadened the council’s scope, but said the Western bloc still has its eye on competition from China. The two sides will announce an “early warning system” for semiconductors supply disruptions, hoping to avoid excessive competition between Western powers
Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), which distributes Toyota and Lexus vehicles in Taiwan, yesterday introduced Toyota Motor Corp’s first all-electric sports utility vehicle (SUV), the bZ4X, joining rivals in vying for a share of the nation’s fast-growing electric vehicle market. Starting today, the bZ4X, with a price tag of NT$1.599 million (US$53,780), would be available for online purchase only and customers need to download a special app to place orders, Hotai said. Hotai has received 300 of the electric SUVs, it said, adding that it is not enough to meet robust market demand. A total of 229 electric vehicles were sold in the