Ministry of SMEs and Startups Holds Fabless-Foundry Win-Win Council

Ministry of SMEs and Startups Holds Fabless-Foundry Win-Win Council

Ministry of SMEs and Startups to hold '3rd Fabless-Foundry Council' in Pangyo Startup Zone

Attending the Korea Fabless Industry Association for the First Time...Announcement of work plan and discussion of future cooperation plan

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups has begun efforts for win-win cooperation between the fabless industry and foundry.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 29th that it held the 3rd Fabless-Foundry Council (Win-Win Council) at Pangyo Startup Zone in Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do. Four domestic pound agencies, including the Korea Fabless Industry Association and Samsung Electronics, and officials from the Seoul National University System Semiconductor Industry Promotion Center attended the event.

The Korea Fabless Industrial Association attended the win-win meeting for the first time as a non-profit corporation with official government permission. The Win-Win Council announced the work plan of the Korea Fabless Industry Association and the results of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups' fabless cooperation support. It also discussed ways to cooperate in the future among participants. The Ministry of SMEs and Startups will review this and reflect it in its policy.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups asked members of the Fabless Association and excellent partners of each foundry to participate in the Job-Fair, which will be held jointly with Seoul National University in November this year.

Noh Yong-seok, a SME policy officer at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, "Competition for supremacy in semiconductor supply chains in each country is getting fiercer and difficulties are intensifying due to the 'three-high crisis'."

The Win-Win Council is a regular communication channel between fabless industries and foundry, which was launched in January this year. The win-win council has been held quarterly to solve problems in the field experienced by small and medium fabless and to specify cooperation measures.

With the decision of the Win-Win Council, the Fabless Challenge Competition, one of the ways to expand the fabless prototype production process, was held jointly with Samsung Electronics' foundry in July this year to select five promising fabless. Samsung Electronics first provided prototype manufacturing processes to the five selected fabless companies, while the Ministry of SMEs and Startups provided 100 million won per company. The first prototype process will begin as early as next month.