“Domestic chips have dried up. We want to use domestic chips in product development, but we can’t get them, so we are using Chinese chips that are widely used in the electronics industry these days. “Since developers tend to use only the chips they normally use, Chinese chips will dominate not only the development of electronic products but also the semiconductors inside them.”

A domestic electronics industry insider who was recently interviewed by our newspaper stated that they used Chinese chips in product development because they could not obtain domestically produced system semiconductors.

He said that in the past, he was able to obtain the chips through Samsung Electronics' System LSI Division, but now, when he inquired, he was told that the chips were not available. He said he had no idea whether it was because they were not produced, could not sell them, or were sold overseas.

This situation is a common opinion among developers, and it is reported that domestic chips are almost disappearing from the development of domestic electronic products, and are being quickly replaced by Chinese chips that are competitive in price and have even more reliability.

This can also be confirmed in premium products. In the case of premium smartphones, which can be said to be the best technology in domestic electronic products, Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S25 was recently released, but the core AP of the smartphone has disappeared from Samsung Electronics' Exynos, as it has been replaced by a product from strategic Qualcomm.

Additionally, despite having the world's best domestic memory semiconductors, it has been reported that some Samsung Electronics Galaxy S25 models are equipped with Micron's memory.

Even if it is not Samsung Electronics, domestically produced chips are disappearing from the development of numerous electronic products, including general chargers, communication modems, wearable electronics, medical devices, and electrical products.

Recently, a chip that many developers are using is the Chinese-made ROCKCHIP, which is used in various embedded systems including low-cost tablets, navigation, TV set-top boxes, e-books, and other IoT devices.

In the past, performance was not up to expectations, but since 2012, performance has grown rapidly and has been installed in low-cost electronics manufacturers as well as Samsung Electronics' Chromebooks. It is used so widely that it can be used.

It has also been reported that a Chinese semiconductor maker is actively targeting the domestic battlefield product market with low prices and performance comparable to that of global semiconductor companies.

It has been reported that global semiconductor companies have recently won a large number of orders for chips from domestic electric appliance manufacturers at prices that are too low to even consider.

A representative of a semiconductor manufacturer that previously supplied to the company said that they gave up on the competition because the company was proposing prices they could not even imagine.

In addition, it is reported that Chinese companies are making notable progress in the SiC and GaN power semiconductor fields, which have been rapidly growing recently, and that Chinese GaN chips are being used in large quantities in charging devices.

Due to the aggressive sales of these Chinese system semiconductor companies, Chinese companies are dominating the domestic supply of embedded chips, and this is also posing a threat to global semiconductor companies such as Infineon, ST, and TI that have enjoyed a solid position in the electronics market.

It is also pushing domestic fabless companies to the brink of collapse.

This is making the domestic electronics industry more difficult and, in the long term, posing a threat to domestic semiconductor manufacturers, but the semiconductor industry currently appears to be not only not responding, but also not even interested.

Although our country had no interest in system semiconductors in the past, various policies and support for fostering system semiconductors were discussed in the wake of the semiconductor crisis in 2021.

Accordingly, the government has also put forth various policies for R&D and facility investment, but rather than growth, growth is sluggish and can be called a crisis.

According to a recent report by the Next Generation Intelligent Semiconductor Business Unit, Korea's share of the global system semiconductor market is expected to increase from 2.3% in 2023 to 2.4% in 2025. It was projected that it would rather fall to 2%.

Amidst this, the fact that interest in system semiconductors is also declining is even more problematic.

As interest in AI semiconductors has been increasing due to the recent AI craze, attention is focused on HBM, which can be said to be the most beneficial field for Korea's AI semiconductors, and it is reported that Samsung Electronics also adjusted its personnel in the System LSI business division last year.

It is pointed out that under these circumstances, it will be difficult for our country to maintain its competitiveness in the system semiconductor sector in the future.

In particular, there are loud voices saying that this crisis was brought upon by our country's electronics industry.

Due to labor costs, the domestic electronics industry closed its domestic production plants and relocated its production bases to China, and as China grew rapidly, production bases moved from China to Vietnam, India, etc., rapidly weakening the competitiveness of the domestic electronics industry while the competitiveness of China, Vietnam, etc. increased.

It is now reported that even in the development of electronic products, there are many cases where the development stage itself is ordered to China or Vietnam, rather than using Chinese semiconductors.

It has been reported that when developing electronic products domestically, it takes a lot of time and money to go through various certifications, and that in the end, Chinese chips must be used and orders must be placed at Chinese manufacturing facilities, which increases costs and increases the unit price of the product.

On the other hand, if you entrust development to a Chinese company, the Chinese company will take care of certification and other matters, and even manufacture it, so it has the competitive edge to supply it at a very low price.

This situation ultimately means that developers will have no place to stand in the country, and ultimately the domestic electronics industry, including semiconductors, will be destroyed.

Electronics industry insiders say the United States, which experienced this situation first, As countries such as Japan are going so far as to start a trade war to ensure that electronics companies produce their products domestically, many in Korea are saying that various policies need to be put in place to allow electronics manufacturing facilities to return to the country.

It also advises that we should further accelerate the development and distribution of domestic chips to actively respond to Chinese chips that are rapidly encroaching on the market.