On July 1, the Japanese government announced that it would remove South Korea's foreign trade whitelist. The three raw materials imported from South Korea, such as photoresist, fluorinated polyimide and hydrogen fluoride, need to be applied 90 days in advance. These materials are flexible in production. Screen panels, important raw materials for semiconductor chips, and these two industries are the economic pillars of Korea.
This incident has seriously affected the normal operation of Korean semiconductor companies such as Samsung and SK Hynix. In the month, Korean media said that Samsung cut the output of Exynos processors for Galaxy Note10 smartphones, and the production share reached 10%.
To this end, Samsung and SK Hynix executives also went to Japan to negotiate with Japanese suppliers to solve the supply of key semiconductor raw materials.
At present, it seems that Samsung has made a breakthrough. On August 8, according to foreign media reports, Japan recently approved the export of EUV photoresist to Korea for the first time. This material is used in chip production to help manufacturers draw chips on silicon crystal. This material is crucial for Samsung. However, Samsung declined to comment on the news.
Moreover, the move does not mean that the trade between Japan and South Korea will be thawed. Officials in South Korea said: "They only approved one product in the ban list."
Earlier, it was reported that after the limited raw materials, Samsung Electronics decided to replace all of the more than 220 kinds of Japanese raw materials and chemicals used in the semiconductor production process with domestic products or other national products.
In response to Japanese sanctions, the South Korean government has also announced a huge investment plan to invest 7.8 trillion won (about 6.5 billion US dollars or 44.9 billion yuan) in research and development of domestic semiconductor materials and equipment in the next seven years, reducing dependence on Japan.
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