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| An American flag flies above the White House in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 9. AP-Yonhap |
By Kim Bo-eun
Samsung Electronics officials are set to attend a White House meeting with other firms in the industry later this month to discuss ways to tackle the global chip shortage.
A Samsung Electronics official said Friday he could not confirm the meeting, but the top chip maker was mentioned along with General Motors and GlobalFoundries as companies that would meet with U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and National Economic Council Director Brian Deese to discuss the issue, in a Bloomberg report published April 1.
According to the report, the White House is also in talks with Congress and foreign allies over dealing with the semiconductor shortage.
The global shortage of semiconductors is attributed to a surge in demand for electronic devices amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as work and school were brought home.
Global automakers are keeping their production lines idle due to the chip shortage. The shortage was exacerbated after carmakers reduced orders and scaled down production in the early stages of the pandemic, based on forecasts that demand would shrink in 2020. Yet demand grew as people opted for their own cars over public transportation as a means to protect themselves from the virus.
What began as a chip shortage in the auto sector is now pressuring electronic device manufacturers.
Global chip suppliers including Samsung are moving to scale up production, but it will take time to address the immediate shortage.
Samsung and Taiwan's TSMC, as the world's largest contract chipmakers, are ramping up production capacity in the U.S. TSMC is building a $12 billion plant in Arizona.
Samsung, meanwhile, is seeking to invest $17 billion to expanding its chip plant in Austin, Texas, to ramp up production.
Intel also unveiled plans in March to invest $20 billion to build two new fabrication plants in Arizona.
The expansion of chip manufacturing facilities in the U.S. is also part of the U.S.' policy push to scale up local production. This is intended to secure supply at a national security level, as the U.S. seeks to counter China's rising influence with technological development.
The Biden administration is seeking to provide incentives for chipmakers to base their production facilities in the U.S.
The global chip shortage is set to continue, with forecasts that this could last through 2021. Recent events are set to extend the disruption of chip supply. Japanese automotive chipmaker Renesas was hit by a fire at its plant in Hitachinaka last month. The company said it would take three to four months for the plant to resume full production. Renesas accounts for 30 percent of the global automotive chip market. A snowstorm in Texas earlier this year also affected chip supply, as it resulted in a power crisis and forced plants of Samsung, NXP and Infineon there to halt production for weeks.
