이 기사는 2021년 07월 14일 07시36분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

Market insiders are paying attention to whether the South Korea’s semiconductor industry will be affected by embattled Chinese tech flagship Tsinghua Unigroup after one of its creditors recently asked a court to begin bankruptcy proceedings for the group.

State-backed Tsinghua Unigroup’s creditor has requested the court to support the bankruptcy protection for the conglomerate, saying the group has failed to repay debt, industry sources said Monday.

Tsinghua Unigroup is 51% owned by Tsinghua University. It has injected a huge amount of money to expand its business to DRAM from mainstay NAND flash memory chips, aiming to challenge market leaders like Samsung Electronics and SK hynix.

Tsinghua Unigroup’s main subsidiaries include Yangtze Memory Technologies, New H3C Technologies, UNISOC Communications, Guoxin Micro, and UniCloud Technology.

The company took over fabless semiconductor company Spreadtrum Communications and tried to purchase U.S. chipmaker Micron Technology. In 2015, Tsinghua Unigroup sent SK hynix a collaboration proposal but the Korean firm turned it down.

Tsinghua Unigroup’s struggle is, however, unlikely to benefit Korean chipmakers as the Chinese company’s market presence is not strong.

According to semiconductor market research institute IC Insights, Chinese companies have an around 5% share in the global semiconductor market and account for less than 1% of the NAND market.

As of the first quarter of 2021, Samsung Electronics dominated the global NAND market with 33.5% market share, followed by Japan's Kioxia (18.7%), Western Digital (14.7%), SK hynix (12.3%), Micron (11.1%), and Intel (7.5%), according to data from TrendForce.

Other companies accounted for only 1.8%, meaning Tsinghua Unigroup's market share is less than 1% even though it enjoyed support from the central and local governments for years.

“Tsinghua Unigroup's bankruptcy may delay China's push to develop its semiconductor industry, but it will have zero impact on Samsung Electronics and SK hynix for now,” said an industry source. “It is also unlikely to have a negative impact on domestic equipment companies that have supplied to Tsinghua Unigroup.”

However, experts emphasize that China's strategy to develop the local chip industry will continue and it may even be upgraded.

“Since semiconductors will be the basis of all industries in the future, there is no reason for China not to do the business,” said an executive at a semiconductor company. “Letting Tsinghua Unigroup fail may imply that China has changed its strategy to boldly bankrupt companies that can't make it and focus on those that can survive.”

The Chinese government has poured a huge amount of funds into semiconductor R&D, aiming to produce 70% of the chips it consumes by 2025. (Reporting by Hye-ran Kim)