The South Korean government has allowed domestic chipmakers such as Samsung Electronics to lend their equipment to conduct quality testing of products supplied by local suppliers.
The country's authorities have promised to support domestic suppliers of products for Samsung and SK Hynix after Japan imposed restrictions on exports to South Korea of high-tech materials used in the production of smartphone displays and memory chips.
“Normally, if you have material or equipment to make chips, you send it to a Belgian semiconductor research institute called IMEC for testing. It is very expensive and takes more than nine months to complete the development before it goes live,” a government official with knowledge of the case told Reuters. There is no incentive for chipmakers and their customers to provide local suppliers with their testing equipment, he said. But due to the extraordinary circumstances, the government convinced them to do so.
Those suppliers whose products are in the final stages of development will benefit from using their customers' equipment for quality testing, as this will allow them to bring their products to market faster.
Source: 3dnews.ru