South Korea has become the latest country to ask Taiwan to help solve the global shortage in automotive semiconductors, reports said Friday (March 19).

Car manufacturers across the world have been forced to postpone deliveries as suppliers have failed to keep up with the demand for chips. The United States, Japan, and Germany have contacted Taiwan, where government and prominent semiconductor manufacturers have promised to do their utmost to help out.

As South Korea’s Samsung Electronics was unable to keep up with demand, local carmakers Hyundai and Kia saw their chip supply dwindle to as low as three months' worth, CNA reported.

As a result, a South Korean delegation visited Economics Minister Wang Mei-hua early this month to request assistance. The country’s representative office in Taipei did not comment, according to the report.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) emphasized that it is treating all requests the same way and that the government and chipmakers have agreed to increase production capacity and to prioritize clients in the automotive sector.

Only 2.2 percent of automotive chips are made in South Korea, with the nation’s carmakers relying on semiconductors from foreign companies, some of which also contract the products from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), CNA reported.

By: DocMemory
Copyright © 2023 CST, Inc. All Rights Reserved