South Korean lithium-ion battery cell maker SK On announced Thursday that it plans to attract a combined $2 billion loan to ramp up its push for a new battery plant in Europe. The green financing will come from seven commercial banks with three export credit agencies -- Korea Trade Insurance Corp., Export-Import Bank of Korea and Allianz Trade (formerly known as Euler Hermes) -- supporting loans...

Samsung Electronics logged an operating profit of 14.1 trillion won ($10.77 billion) during the second quarter, up 12.2 percent from the previous year despite rising material prices and recession fears that are weakening consumer demands, the company said Thursday. The South Korean tech giant’s quarterly revenue from April to June came to 77.2 trillion won, up 21.3 percent from a year prior, sli...

Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor chip foundry business looks to help select smaller chip design houses to create prototypes and validate the pre-production concepts of their own chips. According to the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Samsung will offer multi-project wafer shuttle services to five fabless companies -- DeepX, GLS, SKAi Chips, Semibrain and Raontech -- with the government partiall...

South Korean battery material firm LG Chem announced Wednesday plans to supply at least 950,000 tons of cathode active materials used for electric vehicles to General Motors over the next eight years, which would be enough for some 5 million units. Under the long-term supply agreement, LG Chem will supply cathode materials of nickel, cobalt, manganese and aluminum -- which represent about 40 per...

The Chinese Ambassador to South Korea urged a Korean lawmaker who leads a parliamentary semiconductor committee to exclude “external interference” in chip supply chains and for closer bilateral cooperation in chips, according to the Chinese embassy in Seoul. “China is willing to work with South Korea under the principle of a fair and just market, eliminate external interference, strengthen coope...

LG Energy Solution said Tuesday it looks to set up its first South Korean-Chinese joint battery cell recycling facilities in China for stable supply of key battery materials from battery manufacturing scraps and used batteries. LG Energy Solution, Korea’s largest lithium-ion battery manufacturer by production capacity, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt to launc...

Samsung Electronics’ contract-based chip manufacturing operations have surpassed Taiwan-based foundry rival TSMC in terms of smartphone chipset shipments on advanced nodes in the first quarter, data showed Sunday. Samsung captured some 60 percent of market share in the leading nodes of 5-nanometer or more sophisticated manufacturing process for chipsets going to smartphones from application proc...

The growing call on South Korea to participate in the United States-led chip alliance across East Asia is putting the semiconductor powerhouse, home to Samsung and SK hynix, again in a strategic dilemma. Sitting in the crosshairs of US-China economic warfare, Korea is being pressured to choose a side by joining the new semiconductor alliance of the US, Taiwan and Japan, with Korea making up the ...

Chip-to-smartphone giant Samsung Electronics said Thursday it has unveiled the industry’s fastest GDDR6-standard memory chips for next-generation graphics cards, using the cutting-edge extreme ultraviolet photolithography process. The newest third-generation 10 nanometer-class GDDR6 DRAM is designed to deliver 30 percent faster processing speeds than its predecessor, as they feature 24 gigabits-...

United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is poised to hold talks with South Korea‘s key financial policymakers, raising market expectations of a possible currency swap amid the growing strength of the US dollar against the local currency. Her two-day visit to Korea on July 19-20 will take place immediately after the Group of 20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting in Bali, ...

South Korean chemical firm SK Innovation said Wednesday it has made a $20 million equity investment in US renewable fuels firm Fulcrum BioEnergy. Fulcrum has commercialized a process to produce synthetic oil for transportation by gasifying household waste. With the fresh capital, Fulcrum is expected to reach Asian markets, including Korea, under an exclusive licensing agreement with SK Innovati...

Korea is home to LG Display, which makes white-OLED panels for TVs and LCD panels for electronic devices like smartphones or laptops, as well as Samsung Display, dedicated to small and midsize OLED panels for IT devices. The domestic industry also faces increasing competition from China. Some Korean firms have had to exit the LCD panel business entirely, as they are no match for rivals such as B...

The personal fortune of Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman and de facto leader Lee Jae-yong has decreased by over 2 trillion won ($1.54 billion) during the first half of 2022 as shares of key Samsung affiliates tumbled due to bearish stock market in Korea, data showed Tuesday. As a result, the total worth of Lee’s combined stake in Samsung affiliates fell to 12.03 trillion won as of end-June, fro...

A 6:30 a.m. commute bus, three nutritious meals a day at the cafeteria and a pride that runs deep for being a part of South Korea‘s largest and richest conglomerate have been among many features that captured the “Samsung man” -- trained to fit into the gigantic and somewhat militant organization. A shared goal of maintaining Samsung’s superiority has united its 270,000-member workforce so far, ...

South Korean lithium-ion automotive battery maker LG Energy Solution announced Sunday that its Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman Kwon Young-soo has embarked on a trip to Europe to support the company’s push for the automation of manufacturing. Kwon left Seoul on Sunday with he plans to visit Wroclaw, southwestern Poland, where LG Energy Solution’s 70-gigawatt-hour battery plant is locate...