"An investigation in the South Korean industry shows that American, Japanese, and European companies actually monopolize the AI ​​patents of South Korean semiconductor equipment. The key to improving semiconductor production efficiency is AI technology, and the industry is worried that the competitiveness of South Korean semiconductor equipment will be affected.

According to ETNews, the Next Generation Smart Semiconductor Consortium has cooperated with the Korea Semiconductor Display Technology Association to investigate the AI ​​patent competitiveness of 10 foreign semiconductor equipment companies and 10 Korean semiconductor equipment companies. The results showed that foreign companies accounted for 98% of artificial intelligence patents related to semiconductor equipment in South Korea.

Among them, the U.S. military has the largest proportion, which has applied for 54 patents. ASM and ASML are 24 and 20, respectively. Hitachi High-Tech applied for 12 applications and 11 applications for application materials. There are only three Korean local equipment companies, two of which are from SEMES and always from PSK.

The application of AI technology in semiconductor equipment is directly related to productivity, and can be used for wafer transfer, process recipe optimization, and defect morphology analysis. This reduces the process time and cost of semiconductor production, and at the same time increases the product yield. According to industry evaluations, if AI technology is applied to semiconductor equipment, production efficiency can be increased by up to 10 times.

Lam Research said that its biggest advantage is to reduce the number and cost of experimental design by 20% through AI technology. KLA and TEL also apply AI to their measurement and test equipment.

The report pointed out that foreign companies began to apply for AI-related patents in South Korea in 2008. In particular, since 2017, when the semiconductor super cycle officially began, patent applications by foreign companies have increased dramatically. Local Korean companies did not apply for patents until 2018.

Hyung-joon Kim, chairman of the Next Generation Smart Semiconductor Foundation, commented: ""Most patents are published only one and a half years after application. Therefore, foreign companies are eager to secure patent rights through early disclosure and priority review.""

If the patent rights cannot be secured in time, the competitiveness of the equipment will decline. Because the semiconductor manufacturing process is similar, if a foreign company obtains a patent first, it may interrupt the development of domestic equipment. This shows that AI patent competitiveness has become an obstacle to entering the new generation of semiconductor equipment market.

Hyung-joon Kim emphasized, “The introduction and development of AI patents for domestic semiconductor equipment is unexpectedly backward. It is necessary to advance AI patent applications in areas that are relatively easy to introduce, such as diagnosis and testing.”"