It is rumored that Samsung and SK Hynix executives went to the United States to fight for exemption from the "Chip Act"

It has been reported in the market that senior executives of Samsung and SK Hynix have recently traveled to the United States, hoping to seek exemption from the Chip and Science Act, or to seek an additional one-year buffer for Korean manufacturers similar to the one-year buffer that the United States banned the export of advanced chips/equipment to China last October. Expect.

According to the Korean media Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea, the top executives of two Korean companies recently flew to the United States to urgently discuss the US export control ban on China, and the South Korean government is also rumored to provide support behind the scenes. The content of the discussion related to the follow-up measures of the microarray method.

U.S. President Biden and the U.S. Congress passed the chip law last July, prohibiting corporate entities that receive U.S. chip investment subsidies and tax incentives from investing in advanced chip equipment or substantial semiconductors in China or any overseas countries in the next 10 years Manufacturing expansion plan.

According to the regulations, if Samsung and SK Hynix receive subsidies from the US government, they will not be allowed to make additional investment in China in the next 10 years.

Samsung has a wafer foundry in Austin, Texas, and is currently building a new factory in Taylor; Samsung plans to build 11 new chip factories in Texas in the next 20 years.

SK Hynix plans to spend 15 billion US dollars on advanced packaging manufacturing and chip-related research and development in the United States, and plans to select a site for the construction of an advanced packaging factory this year. According to reports, the factory will start mass production between 2025 and 2026 and create 1,000 jobs.

In China, Samsung has factories in Xi'an and Suzhou, and SK Hynix has factories in Wuxi and Dalian. In the third quarter of last year, 29.2% of SK Hynix's sales came from China. Samsung's sales in China also account for more than 30% of its total revenue.

A few days ago, as the United States increasingly pushed China out of the global technology supply chain, the already close semiconductor trade relationship between China and South Korea was under pressure; on the other hand, the US technology policy will make South Korean chip giants feel oppression. "South Korea has no choice but to join the U.S. chip restrictions on China," Choo Jae-woo, a professor of Chinese studies at Kyung Hee University in South Korea, emphasized this point again, and the decoupling between China and South Korea may become increasingly prominent.