Can Samsung Electronics enjoy its leisurely pace? No. I think there are numerous internal and external risks. There are many obstacles. It seems that they are going through weather where thunder and lightning strike from all directions. Internally, they always have owner risks. Above all, the biggest crisis factor is the obstacle called TSMC. Big clients such as Apple and NVIDIA have already joined hands with TSMC and placed orders. Samsung said that it will catch up with TSMC in the foundry market within the next 10 years. Will that happen? ■ TSMC's growth Morris Chang expressed his pride at his retirement ceremony in 2018, saying that if there had been no TSMC, smartphones would not have been introduced to the world so early. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted that Taiwan's per capita GDP will surpass Korea's this year. This is the first reversal in 19 years since 2003. It was due to TSMC. ■ Samsung vs. TSMC Semiconductors are largely divided into memory semiconductors and system semiconductors. Memory semiconductors refer to DRAMs or NAND flashes that can store information. System semiconductors are semiconductors that interpret and calculate information. They are divided into fabless companies that design according to the manufacturing process and foundry companies that are only responsible for production. Samsung is the number one company in the memory semiconductor market share, and Taiwan's TSMC is number one in the system semiconductor market, which is the largest market within it, the foundry market. Samsung and others are following behind. ■ Global semiconductor competition in full swing In early August, US House Speaker Pelosi made a surprise visit to Taiwan. China protested strongly, and the world's attention was focused on her. On the second day of her visit, Speaker Pelosi met with TSMC founder and former chairman Morris Chang and current chairman Mark Liu. The Washington Post evaluated this as a move that once again showed how important Taiwanese semiconductors are to US national security. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen also publicly expressed the will of the US, Taiwan, and TSMC to cooperate. US President Biden chose Samsung's foundry plant as his first stop. There, President Biden toured the 3nm semiconductor production facility. The first and third place in the US power hierarchy visited Samsung and TSMC, respectively, at around the same time. The US wants to build semiconductor factories on its territory as well. The US is a semiconductor design powerhouse, accounting for about 60% of the semiconductor chip design market, but its production market share is only 13%. For this reason, it passed a bill to invest 366 trillion won in fostering the semiconductor industry and decided to provide a 25% tax credit to companies building semiconductor factories. This has ignited an investment competition between TSMC and Samsung. ■ TSMC, what are your plans going forward? TSMC invested 13.6 trillion won in the construction of a 5nm-class factory in Arizona, aiming for mass production in 2024. This is the first time TSMC is building a 5nm-class factory outside of Taiwan. TSMC is also building a 10-20nm-class semiconductor factory in Japan. The Japanese government has provided 4 trillion won of the approximately 10 trillion won in construction costs. It is reported that semiconductors produced at this plant will be supplied first to Japanese companies such as Toyota and Sony. Samsung is using Texas, USA as its forward base. Samsung, which already operates two foundry plants in Austin, is building an additional state-of-the-art foundry plant nearby. It has invested about 20 trillion won and aims to start operation in the second half of 2024. It is also considering an investment plan to invest 250 trillion won over the next 20 years to build 11 new plants. The Current Affairs Mentoring Tracking reporting team wanted to ask about TSMC's competitiveness and future investment plans. -2022.8.28 (Sun) KBS1TV Current Affairs Mentoring Tracking Episode 17 [Trust Game] #Samsung Electronics #TSMC #Apple #NVIDIA #Semiconductor #Global Economy #Current Affairs Mentoring #KBS Current Affairs -Reporter: Lee Hyun-joon -Filming: Kwon Jun-yong -Editing: Lee Ki-seung