President Moon Jae-in and Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong held a meeting at Samsung Electronics' local operations on April 30. President Moon attended 'System Semiconductor Vision Declaring Ceremony' held at Samsung Electronics' plant in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, on the afternoon of April 30.
"Today's report is to take the world's No. 1 position in memory semiconductor field and take on new challenges," President Moon said. "We are not complacent about our current performance and are planning to put 'future' beyond 'advanced' into Korean products."
In July last year, President Moon attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the Noida mobile phone plant in India. Some argue whether President Moon's visit was appropriate as the vice chairman is set to be sentenced by the Supreme Court on charges of embezzlement and bribery in connection with the state affairs scandal.
This, however, can be interpreted as meaning that the government expressed strong support for investment in the new industry. Also, some analysts say that the government, which cited non-memory semiconductors and future-oriented cars as key industries, has sent signals to induce active investment by other companies.
President Moon promised to actively help "conductor vision 2030" worth 133 trillion won, which the Vice Chairman Lee is actively pursuing. Lee replied, "We are going to be the first." Samsung had earlier declared a bold investment in the non-memory sector, which is represented by system semiconductors.
It is predicted that demands for system semiconductors will increase greatly in the era of 4th industrial revolution such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and self-driving.
Samsung Electronics' goal is to become the world's top supplier of system semiconductor foundries (a company that manufactures and supplies semiconductors) by 2030 and to have a 10% market share in fabless (a company that designs and sells semiconductors).
System Semiconductor is a semiconductor that contains variety of functions and is a field that South Korean Government considers as 'three pillars' of new growth engines along with bio-health and future vehicles.
"In order for system semiconductor industries to succeed, it is important to invest in people and technologies and compete in industries' ecosystems," said President Moon. "We need to strengthen cooperation and co-prosperity between fabless, a design company, and foundry, a production company."