The semiconductor war for supremacy has just risen… Why did the US White House call Samsung?

The US Biden administration is in full swing to take the lead in the global semiconductor market supply chain.

According to local foreign media such as Bloomberg News on the 2nd, US President Joe Biden’s national security and economic advisers will meet with semiconductor and automobile companies on the 12th.

In particular, it is known that Samsung Electronics of Korea is also included in the list of companies invited to the White House. It is analyzed that Samsung Electronics was called because it operates a foundry plant in Austin, Texas. In addition, a number of semiconductor, automobile, and tech companies such as General Motors and Global Foundry were invited, Bloomberg News reported.

At this meeting, it is expected to discuss the effects and solutions of the shortage of semiconductor chips for vehicles, which has recently become increasingly controversial. The semiconductor chip crisis that hit the world in recent years is attributed to the surge in demand for home appliances, including laptops, due to Corona 19.

As semiconductor chip supply is delayed, automakers with factories in North America are also disrupting production. Currently, Samsung and Taiwan TSMC are in charge of most of the world’s semiconductor chip supply. Accordingly, the Biden government is focusing its efforts on expanding domestic production.

However, there is also an atmosphere that some people accept as a sign that the US has jumped in to secure leadership in the global’hegemony competition’.

In fact, Biden has emphasized the importance of linking the semiconductor industry with national security. President Biden had already signed an executive order at the end of February requiring a 100-day review of the supply chain of key items, including semiconductors. In addition, on the 31st of last month, it announced a large-scale economic stimulus plan worth 2.5 trillion dollars and disclosed a 50 billion dollar (about 56 trillion won) support plan for the semiconductor industry. It is expected that the US will be used for investment incentives and talent development for local companies with the purpose of regaining competitiveness in the global semiconductor market.

As the share of the U.S. in the global semiconductor manufacturing industry has fallen from 37% in 1990 to 12% now, it is interpreted to be to solidify its leadership in the global market by recovering this.

Accordingly, US companies are responding through investments. On the 23rd, Intel announced plans to significantly expand its semiconductor production capacity in the United States, including investing $20 billion to establish two new semiconductor factories in Arizona.

In addition, US semiconductor companies Micron and Western Digital are pushing to acquire shares of Japanese semiconductor company Kioxia.

Kioxia is a manufacturer of NAND flash memory semiconductors for smartphones and computer servers.It was originally a business of Toshiba, Japan, but was sold for $18 billion to a consortium of Korea-US-Japan alliances in which SK Hynix and Bain Capital participated in 2018.

Micron is one of the world’s largest memory chip manufacturers and is the third largest DRAM supplier in the world. Western Digital produces NAND flash and hard disk drives, and has also established a joint venture with Kioxia for manufacturing and research and development.

In the industry, if US companies increase their influence with the government’s support, the impact will be quite large. The reason is that the US is a country that already possesses enormous core technology in the semiconductor industry, so domestic companies have no choice but to fight hard.

An industry insider said, “It takes a considerable amount of time to operate a semiconductor plant, but if US semiconductor companies increase their influence even more, the competition will become more intense.”