[Teheran-ro] The Fabless Industry Faces Cold Winds

Kang Kyung-rae, Deputy Minister of SMEs and Startups "To leap beyond being a powerhouse in memory semiconductors to becoming a powerhouse in comprehensive semiconductors, fostering the fabless industry, which focuses on the system semiconductor (non-memory) sector, is essential.
" Kim Kyung-ho, Chairman of the Korea Fabless Industry Association, stated, "Korea's share of the global system semiconductor market remains at around 2%," adding, "If innovation is delayed, competitiveness will further deteriorate.
" Fabless companies operate by specializing solely in semiconductor development while strictly outsourcing production. Representative examples include Nvidia, which dominates the global artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor market, and Qualcomm, the number one wireless communication semiconductor manufacturer.
As the global semiconductor market enters a supercycle, Korea, which leads the global market in the memory semiconductor sector with companies like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, is drawing attention. In particular, driven by robust memory semiconductor exports, South Korea's export figures have continued to reach record levels every month since the second half of last year.
13 billion. This represents a 48% increase compared to the same period last year, breaking the all-time monthly export record for the tenth consecutive month. During this period, semiconductor exports surpassed $30 billion for the first time on a monthly basis.
However, some voices express regret over the sluggish performance of system semiconductors, which represent a market more than twice the size of memory semiconductors. Notably, a significant number of fabless companies leading the system semiconductor industry remain small-scale entities.
In fact, as of last year, not a single South Korean company was included in the top 10 global fabless firms. The United States, on the other hand, had as many as seven companies on the list: Nvidia, Qualcomm, Broadcom, AMD, Marvell, OmniVision, and MPS. Taiwan had three companies: MediaTek, Novatek, and Realtek.
Contrary to the semiconductor superboom, even LX Semicon, the undisputed number one domestic fabless company, could not avoid negative growth. 6391 trillion won, a 22% decrease from the previous year. 9 billion won. A significant number of domestic fabless companies, including AlphaChips and ImageTechnology, recorded losses during the same period.
It is true that Korea is benefiting from areas such as High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) amidst the unprecedented semiconductor boom. However, for Korea to leap beyond memory semiconductors and become a true semiconductor powerhouse, isn't it time for the government and industry to pay closer attention to the fabless industry, which acts as the vanguard for system semiconductors?
butter@fnnews.com Reporter