A Study of New growth strategy of Memory Manufacturers

• Main Authors: Young-il Kim, 金泳一
• Other Authors: Ching-Sung Wu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/36832407866548165286

碩士 === 臺灣大學 === 國際企業管理組 === 96 === In the IT industry that varies from minute to minute, there is no forever number 1. Today, Korean manufacturers are dominating the memory semiconductor manufacturing. It is because Korea had had technology insertion from American Company – Commy in the 60s’. Afterwards, Korea has continued the technology development. Despite the adverse conditions that were bad for development, Koreans’ perseverance in learning and the Korean Government’s active investment in IT industry have made Korea the number 1 semiconductor memory manufacturer in the world today. Memory semiconductor industry is the representative of venture capital industry. When Korea just got started, it gained experience from both America and Japan. At that time, most highly-advanced countries considered memory semiconductor industry as an industry that required massive investment but had low investment rate of return. It was not such a smart idea to invest in a semiconductor manufacturing technology center. Korea, against all odds, managed to overcome all difficulties and devoted all its energy to research and development. All the hard work had finally paid off – Korea has caught up with both American and Japanese technologies and become the world’s number 1 memory semiconductor manufacturer. Today, Korean memory semiconductor manufacturing has become an index for global precursors in terms of manufacturing and designing skills. Up until now, dozens of memory semiconductor companies had become obsolete. Only a few companies from America, Japan, Germany, Korea and Taiwan still manage to exist in the market. It is because these companies have been increasing capital in buying equipment and technology development. Those that are short on capital or are not capable of technology development do not stand a chance in the competing global market today. The main market for semiconductor industry is PC Industry which has a good & bad prosperity cycle every 4-5 years. The pressures caused by constant low prices, plus semiconductor manufacturers have been continuously increasing the production lines have weakened their working capital turnover. It is now becoming very difficult for them in terms of survival. From the recent market trend we observe, mobile phones and digital household electronic appliances have been applied diversely in the semiconductor market. In DRAM’s demarcation, a new semiconductor market named Flash has slowly started to form. Compare it to the previous markets, although it has cast light on the market, the truth is everyone is competing with low prices, plus the high production costs of the products, the profits for manufacturers are miniscule. The competition in semiconductor market has, therefore, become more and more intense. Under such adverse environment, semiconductor manufacturers started to look for other possibilities, explore new methods for industrial growth and new ways to survive. Qimonda of Infenion, Germany was divided from the memory semiconductor company. Micron , America, readjusted its goals in the development of non semiconductor products and product diversities. Hitach, Japan had a merger with NEC and become Elpida. This is a means to increase its competitiveness. Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers are starting to follow in their footsteps to increase their competitiveness through mutual investment. Actually, although there are many different ways to increase the competitiveness such as cooperation, mutual investment or JV within the same industry, semiconductor manufactures’ main focus is on product diversities which are the most important issue in this industry. Prices for memory semiconductor industry will fall because of the business cycle. Under such pressure, choosing high valued added non-memory semiconductor products has become the number 1 issue for the entire industry. The turnover of Korean memory semiconductor which is equipped with massive production equipment and high market share is less than half of Intel’s turnover and Intel sells non semiconductor products. The differences between their value added products are obvious. Whether it’s the dominating global semiconductor manufacturer, Samsung or the world’s number 3 semiconductor manufacturer Hyunix, they are either manufacturing non semiconductor products or working on the preparation work for it. As the precursors of this industry, what are their future operational directions? In this ever-changing environment, besides providing with solutions for structural problems, this thesis will focus on: will the “new power for growth“in the semiconductor industry continue to help it grow ? At the meantime, we will be analyzing current conditions of non memory semiconductor manufacturing among semiconductor manufacturers and then provide with new operational suggestions for memory semiconductor manufacturers based on the analyzed data.