Foreword

South Korea's chip technology has always been relatively mature, especially in recent years, South Korea's chip export performance has also been quite impressive. In the first half of 2025, it had a total export volume of US$73.3 billion, which made countries that are studying chip technology envious.

In recent years, due to the US sanctions on Chinese chips, China has been working hard on chip technology research. So the first half of this year has passed, so how much does China's chip export volume have? Will it lag behind South Korea?

Korean chip

In May last year, the South Korean president spent 3.3 billion won to support South Korea's chip technology, with the goal of making South Korean chips the world's number one.

In fact, if you pay this money, you will get a return. In the first half of 2024, South Korea's chip exports were US$65.8 billion, and in the first half of this year, it reached US$73.3 billion, an increase of 11.4% year-on-year.

South Korea's memory chips have achieved good results, with a growth of 88.7%, which is mainly due to the sales of high-broadband memory and high-end products, and the promotion of global entry into the AI ​​industry.

South Korea's achievements today mainly come from a good foundation. In the 1980s, the South Korean government launched a 6-year semiconductor industrial plan to open the way for South Korea's future semiconductor industry.

At that time, technical funds mainly came from strong support from the South Korean government, and also laid a foundation for future Korean giants.

After that, it joined forces with Samsung, LG and other companies to invest huge amounts of money in the development of chips, and stipulated the requirement of "no loans if they are not successful". Later, it changed the industrial environment through the introduction of talents and technical licensing and other measures.

Samsung and Hynix in South Korea already have memory chips, but South Korea has not stopped and continues to research on semiconductor devices.

In the global semiconductor equipment market, the United States, Japan and Europe have long been at the forefront of the world, and South Korea is not willing to admit defeat. In July this year, the Korean brand LG launched a new generation of hybrid bonding machines.

It is said by the Korean media to be the most promising product, which is a path from South Korea's independent research and development to the layout of the entire industrial chain.

The second is the Korean memory chip giant, which affects market prices by controlling production capacity, making South Korea dominate the global semiconductor industry.

South Korea has also made great changes in technological breakthroughs and industrial upgrading. Before, it purchased Meiguang Technology technology to explore Japanese engineers to achieve technical advantages, and then master advanced technology and have a leading position in the international field.

Comparing with South Korea's chip exports, what achievements did China have in the first half of 2025?

Chinese chip

In the first half of 2025, China's chip export volume was RMB 650.26 billion, about US$93 billion, and chip exports in the first half of 2024 were RMB 542.74 billion, a year-on-year increase of 20.3%.

It is obvious that in just a few years, China's chip development has surpassed South Korea. Correspondingly, with the increase in export volume, the number of chips is also increasing.

In the first half of this year, China's chip exports were 16.777 billion, an increase of 20.6% year-on-year, with an average daily export volume of 932 million, and the daily export volume was 3.6 billion yuan, a record high.

Behind this excellent achievement is the silent efforts of Chinese scientists.

Behind the economic growth, China's market share is also growing, increasing from 5% before to 13% now, indicating that more and more customers are accepting Chinese chips.

So what aspects does China's chip export volume mainly come from?

First of all are automotive electronic chips and industrial chips, with outstanding growth in these two aspects, and the cumulative shipment of automotive information security chips exceeding 3 million.

The second is that exports to ASEAN have become the largest sales market, with an increase of 39.8% year-on-year, and a total export volume of 21.8%, which has greatly improved.

In addition, the unit price of each chip is also increasing, which has increased by 5.1% year-on-year compared with last year. While the unit price is increasing, the technology is also increasing, and the mature production capacity has exceeded 70%.

The domestic chips independently developed by my country have become more and more mature. Compared with China's imported automotive chips, the amount has dropped by 32.4%, and the amount has also dropped by 37.1%, which has reduced a lot of pressure on my country's imports.

The export volume of Chinese chips is inseparable from the increase in manufacturers, which increased by 14% year-on-year. It is expected that by 2025, Chinese chip manufacturers are expected to account for one-third of the world.

Square-Tech, Huahong and Hefei Jinghe have ranked among the top ten foundries in the world, with a total share of about 10%.

China's chips have also made great breakthroughs in technology. Automotive chips and industrial chips have fully realized domestic production lines. Domestic lithography machines, etching machines and other equipment have accelerated their replacement of imports, and even shortened the delivery cycle, which has dropped from 52 weeks to 8 weeks.

Although Chinese chips have achieved phased victory, they still face challenges.

Imported chips cost 4.9 yuan per piece, while exported Chinese chips cost only 3.9 yuan per piece. This gap widens to 1 yuan, which means that high-end chips still rely on imports.

The United States still has a "bottleneck" problem for China. It uses EDA tools and materials to block the development of Chinese chips. The dispute over Nvidia H20 chips has caused security issues, but it also promotes the accelerated growth of domestic AI chips.

The difference between Chinese and Korean chips

Although China's chip exports are higher than South Korea, China exports more consumer electronic chips, and South Korea pays more attention to high-end products, so China and South Korea are different on their development paths.

In the context of the global chip war, Sino-US trade is also affecting the economies of the two countries. South Korea's chips are added in the middle, but South Korea is still more inclined to the United States, so South Korea's chip exports to China have dropped by 31.8%.

China's exports of chips to South Korea are more intermediate products. In 2025, South Korea's ICT exports were US$115.16 billion, an increase of 5.8%, and chips accounted for US$7.331 billion.

But China wins because of the large number of chips and greater future development potential. The "chip war" continues. Once it falls behind this time, it will be difficult to turn around. If the two countries cooperate, there will be a win-win result in the future.

Each of them has their own advantages. I hope that Chinese chips will break through the technical difficulties as soon as possible and go to the forefront of global chips.

Reference link

China's integrated circuit exports in the first half of the year were 650.26 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.3%. The semiconductor industry is 2025-07-14 18:35 South Korea's ICT exports exceeded US$115 billion in the first half of the year, and chip exports reached 73.3 billion. Financial circles 2025-07-14 11:55 Beijing