US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is driving a fundamental reordering of the global semiconductor supply chain. According to exclusive analysis from DIGITIMES analyst Luke Lin, the administration has shifted its pressure campaign away from advanced logic chips and toward memory, delivering a blunt ultimatum to South Korea's two dominant producers: build wafer fabs in the US or face tariffs of up to 100%.
High-Bandwidth Flash (HBF) is likely to reach commercialization sooner than previously expected and could become a key technology supporting large-scale data training and real-time inference, said Joungho Kim, professor of electrical engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
Kioxia, the world's third-largest manufacturer of NAND flash memory, has largely exhausted its production capacity for the current year and expects tight supply conditions to persist through 2027, according to comments from a senior executive cited by South Korean media.
Following its announcement to sell the Tongluo fab to Micron Technology, Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing (PSMC) provided an update on its latest operational plans.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have been investing tens of trillions of won each year to expand memory production as the global market moves into a new upcycle. That spending now faces fresh pressure from the US semiconductor tariff policy, complicating long-term investment planning at the two companies.
Samsung Electronics on January 16 announced payout ratios for its 2025 excess profit performance incentive, with the Device Solutions (DS) division set to receive bonuses equivalent to 47% of annual base salary. The level represents a sharp rebound from 14% for 2024 and zero in 2023.
