A few days ago, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced that it will strengthen the export control for Korea for the three materials required for the manufacturing process of semiconductors for smartphones and televisions, and will be officially implemented on July 4.

According to the data, the materials that will strengthen the export control to Korea are mainly: high-purity hydrogen fluoride required for "cleaning" in the semiconductor manufacturing process, sensitizer "photoresist" coated on a semiconductor substrate, Manufacture of fluorinated polyimide for TV and smartphone display panels, all of which are key materials required for display panels and semiconductor chip manufacturing processes.

According to the data, Japan accounts for 90% of the global production of fluoropolyimide and photo-resistance, and 70% of the global semiconductor companies need to import hydrogen fluoride from Japan.

Based on the 2017 data, the domestic semiconductor raw material rate in Korea is only 50.3%, which means that half of them need to rely on foreign manufacturers. Most of these are Japanese manufacturers.

Obviously, this move in Japan is bound to threaten the production of display panels from Samsung and LG in South Korea, as well as the production of memory chips from Samsung and SK Hynix.

In response to the threat from Japan, the Korean government also plans to invest heavily to further strengthen the autonomy of domestic semiconductor materials, parts and equipment.

Earlier in February of this year, the Korea Ministry of Industry, Trade and Resources had publicly stated that it plans to increase the national production of semiconductor raw materials to 70% by 2022.

According to reports, on July 3, the South Korean ruling Communist Party, the government, and the Qingwatai held a high-level meeting, and said that Japan plans to invest 1 trillion won (about 5.88 billion yuan) in response to Japan’s restrictions on exports to South Korea. Advance research and development on semiconductor materials, components and equipment is underway.