| [ POSTECH ] in KIDS 글 쓴 이(By): caught (꿈의극장) 날 짜 (Date): 2000년 12월 1일 금요일 오전 11시 50분 02초 제 목(Title): [p] Korean chipmakers will face the toil Korean chipmakers face growing challenge from foreign rivals Rivals to Korean semiconductor producers are putting up increasingly stronger competition in the global memory chip market. Industry watchers say Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Electronics Industries (HEI) urgently need to enhance their competitiveness to cope with the emergence of Micron Technology and Infineon Technologies as leaders in next generation memory chips. They also need to deal with Hitachi and NEC's planned merger of their dynamic random access memory (DRAM) operations. Micron is fast enhancing its presence in the 128M DRAM market, which Samsung once dominated. The U.S. firm's global market share is estimated at 43 percent, with Samsung and HEI trailing behind with 23 percent and 10 percent. Micron's leadership position is attributed to its more advanced precision design technology. The company has already adopted technology to cut chip circuits' width to 0.14 microns, boosting the yield rate, the number of chips cut out from a singe wafer. Samsung currently cut chips to a width of 0.17 microns. Infineon of Germany is also emerging as a strong contender to Korean concerns in the 256M DRAM market. Its market share of 33 percent is still far off from Samsung's 50 percent. But the company has secured huge funds through an initial public offering in March when chipmakers' share prices were skyrocketing. Infineon is expected to spend big in the development and production of next generation chips. The latest challenge comes from Hitachi and NEC, which announced plans Tuesday to spend about $1.45 billion to build a new jointly-owned factory to produce DRAMs chips. The factory in Hiroshima will begin making next-generation DRAMs, starting in April 2002 and have the capacity to build 3,000 units per month initially, rising to a maximum of 20,000. With their combined share estimated at 13 percent, the joint venture will emerge as the fourth largest DRAM maker in the world, following Samsung (20.7 percent), HEI (19.3 percent) and Micron (14.4 percent), according to research firm Dataquest. NEC and Hitachi want to increase their share to 17 percent by 2004. Their new factory will be equipped with 12-inch wafer lines for the first time in the world, aiming to reclaim control of global DRAM markets which they lost to Korean makers. Samsung plans to start building new production lines for 12-inch wafers late next year. But the plan may be delayed as the company considers cutting investments in the chip business in 2001, sources said. HEI, laboring under heavy debts, is now on the threshold of falling behind the DRAM powers, unless it boosts its production and marketing capacity, watchers say. "The market leadership is determined by capital, technology and production capacity, in which the NEC-Hitachi joint venture is highly likely to outstrip HEI by 2002," said Choi Sok-po, of Meritz Securities. By Hwang Jang-jin Staff reporter 2000.11.30 |