According to ETNews reports, DB HiTek plans to increase its production to 9,000 wafers this year, and has already completed 90% of its target. It plans to continue to expand its production by more than 10,000 wafers next year to reach 15,000 wafers per month.

In addition, Key Foundry, a foundry formally established after separating from MagnaChip in September last year, plans to expand its monthly production capacity by 10,000 pieces by the end of this year. At present, Key Foundry's core foundry production capacity is about 82,000 pieces, and it plans to have a production capacity of 92,000 pieces early next year.

"The supply of semiconductor equipment to key foundries is steadily increasing. We have begun to expand equipment production to increase production capacity," said the CEO of a Korean semiconductor equipment company.

The report pointed out that the current demand for chips mainly produced on 8-inch wafers, including power management ICs, display driver ICs, and microprocessors (MCU), has rapidly increased, and the overall supply is in a tight state. In the first half of the year, foundry prices increased by 10%-20%, which exacerbated the operating difficulties of fabless. Therefore, fabs have decided to expand production, which has also led to continuous growth in performance.

According to the report, as of the end of 2021, the monthly production capacity of the 8-inch foundry in South Korea is expected to increase by 20,000 pieces.