"Less restrictions on competition in the foundry market"
Fair Trade Commission, Taiwan approved… only 1 remaining
Vice Chairman Jeong-ho Park presides over his first shareholders’ meeting
Pursuing a
SK Hynix is one step closer to acquiring Key Foundry. The Korea Fair Trade Commission, along with Taiwan, approved the merger plan.
The Fair Trade Commission decided on the 30th to approve the acquisition of Key Foundry by SK Hynix, stating that there are no restrictions on competition. An FTC official said, “SK Hynix and Key Foundry are providing foundry services for advanced semiconductor products such as 8-inch display driver ICs (DDI) and power management integrated circuits (PMIC), but considering the combined market share level and the overall global foundry market, there is little risk of restricting competition.”
In October last year, SK Hynix signed a contract to acquire a 100% stake in Key Foundry from Magnus Semiconductor for 575.8 billion won. Two months later, the FTC reported a review of the merger.
The FTC approved the merger after about three months. The reason is that the combination of the two companies is unlikely to limit competition, and the two companies do not have a high market share in the 8-inch foundry market.
The combined market share, of the two companies in the foundry market that produces 8-inch semiconductors on consignment, is around 5%. The basisfor the decision is that there are sufficient competitors such as TSMC (Taiwan), UMC (Taiwan), and Global Foundry (US), so there is no need to restrict competition.
The FTC explained, "The two companies overlap in manufacturing displays and power management semiconductors, and they are providing 8-inch foundries such as CMOS image sensors, mixed signals, and non-volatile memory semiconductors."but added, "There is little competition with the global semiconductor industry and they do not have 12-inch advanced semiconductor fabs."
SK Hynix's acquisition of Key Foundry is expected to accelerate. After the acquisition contract, SK Hynix is undergoing antitrust screenings by authorities in three major countries. So far, it has been approved by the FTC and Taiwan. There is only one review remaining.
SK Hynix also recently acquired Intel's NAND flash division. Along with the memory semiconductor market such as solid state drive (SSD), it plans to actively respond to the global 8-inch foundry market.
Meanwhile, SK Hynix held a shareholders' meeting and appointed No-jeongKwak and Jong-won Rohas new in-house directors. SK Hynix Vice Chairman Jung-ho Park presided over his first shareholders' meeting since taking office.
At the shareholders' meeting,vice chairman Park also announced his intention to acquire ARM, a British semiconductor fabless design company. ARM is a British semiconductor fabless company owned by Japan's Softbank. Nvidia had previously sought to acquire ARM for $66 billion (about 79 trillion won) from Softbank. In order to make application processors (AP) with advanced semiconductor processes, it is necessary to purchase an expensive semiconductor design asset (IP) from ARM. SK Hynix is also reportedly considering acquiring ARM with strategic investors to produce advanced APs.
By staff reporter Ji-woong Kim (jw0316@etnews.com)