The South Korean government said Wednesday that it plans to nurture the country's chip-making industry by boosting local output of chip-making equipment.

South Korea is one of the leading memory chip manufacturing countries in the world, but there have been calls to enhance its technological base on design-related services, semiconductor-related parts, components and manufacturing machines.

According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the localization rate of semiconductor equipment has been staying at around 20 percent since the 1990s.

Also, the proportion of chip exports to the country's total outbound shipments has declined to 9 percent in 2012, from 11 percent in 2011 and 15 percent in 2000, it said.

The ministry said it will make efforts to indigenously develop mobile CPU core, a key computing component used in smartphone applications.

The ministry estimated that royalty payments for mobile CPU core increased to 350 billion won (US$331 million) last year from 180 billion won in 2008.

The world's semiconductor market was estimated at some $304 billion last year, with the memory chip sector valued at around $52.9 billion.

South Korea currently supplies nearly half of the world's memory chips, but its share in the market for all semiconductors remains at around 14 to 15 percent, according to the ministry.

By private company, Samsung Electronics Co. came in second with $31.2 billion in sales last year while SK hynix Inc. ranked seventh with $8.9 billion in sales, according to the ministry.

Meanwhile, the ministry said earlier that along with six private companies, it would develop new materials and technology for memory chips.

By: DocMemory
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