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Although there is a shortage of semiconductors around the world, Korean companies that mainly manufacture memory semiconductors are not enjoying the benefits.



Reporter Lee Seong-hoon reports.



<Reporter> In



the third quarter of this year, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix announced record-breaking quarterly sales.



But the stock price is on the decline.



This is because the general-purpose memory semiconductor market is expected to cool down next year, with DRAM prices falling by nearly 10% this month, the two companies ranked first and second in the world.



On the other hand, due to a global shortage of semiconductors such as vehicles and smartphones, the ransom of foundry companies that produce ordered semiconductors is rising.



Annual revenues for the top 10 foundries this year are expected to exceed $100 billion for the first time ever.



This is the background behind Samsung Electronics' plan to triple its foundry production capacity by 2026 compared to 2017.



[Seung-Hoon Han, Executive Vice President of Foundry Business Division, Samsung Electronics: We are making unprecedented investments in infrastructure and equipment.]



SK hynix also signed a contract to acquire Key Foundry, an 8-inch foundry company, at a cost of 575.8 billion won to produce foundry. We started to strengthen our capabilities.



The demand for foundries inevitably increases further due to the successive declarations of semiconductor independence by big tech companies, so they are actively responding.



Apple recently unveiled its own developed chip, and it is evaluated that it has the fastest operation speed among existing CPUs.



[Johnny Srouge / Apple Senior Vice President: We want to push the performance of Apple's silicon (Apple-designed processor) even further, so we're releasing two new chips for Mac notebooks instead of one.]



Google, Amazon, and Tesla respectively We started to develop our own semiconductors optimized for the required performance.



[Ahn Ki-hyun / Executive Vice President of Korea Semiconductor Industry Association: It is because designing it yourself is advantageous in performance and price.

The second is that the semiconductor manufacturing side has greater bargaining power with the foundry...

.] Not



only TSMC, the No. 1 in the foundry industry, but also Intel announced an astronomical amount of investment, heralding a battle over the foundry market.



(Video editing: Jo Moo-hwan)