On May 21, US President Biden visited Northeast Asia aboard Air Force One, and arrived at the U.S. military Wushan Air Force Base in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, in the afternoon of May 20, officially starting a three-day visit to South Korea. After meeting with the new president of South Korea, Yin Xiyue, and Lee Jae Yong, vice president of Samsung Electronics, they jointly visited the Samsung pingze wafer factory about 70 kilometers south of Seoul.
It is understood that under the guidance of Li Zairong, Biden and Yin Xiyue visited Samsung's first production line and the third production line under construction. Samsung Electronics introduced Biden to the 3nm semiconductor pilot product with full surround gate structure, which will be put into mass production for the first time in the world. At the same time, applied materials, Fanlin group and Kelei, American equipment suppliers of Samsung Semiconductor production line, also showed Biden their equipment.
Samsung announced a few months ago that it would spend $17 billion to build an advanced process chip factory in Texas. For Biden, under the background of global semiconductor supply shortage, increasing chip supply in the United States is one of Biden's priorities. As a semiconductor power, South Korea has become a major measure.
"I just saw how this factory makes the most advanced semiconductor chips in the world," Biden said in a speech after visiting the Samsung pingze factory "Working closely with allies and partners like South Korea that share value with the United States is crucial to ensure our needs and strengthen supply chain resilience."
Biden said, "only in this way can we be more prosperous and strengthen our recovery ability in the long term, so that our citizens can seize the most advantageous position in the competition in the 21st century. Only by ensuring the supply chain can we avoid relying on other countries in terms of economy and national security."
According to the White House in its official statement, "due to the continuous cooperation with South Korea and Samsung, Samsung is investing US $17 billion to build a new semiconductor factory, bringing the number of jobs in the United States to 20000."
According to the agenda, on the afternoon of May 21, South Korean President Yin Xiyue will hold a formal meeting with US President Biden. After the meeting, the two sides will hold a joint press conference. Yin Xiyue will hold a welcome banquet for Biden. Company leaders including Samsung, SK, Hyundai and LG will attend the event.
It is worth mentioning that from the exposed Samsung wafer factory visit video, Biden and Yin Xiyue did not wear dust-free clothes and shoe covers into the clean room of the wafer factory, which will cause serious pollution to the clean room and endanger the production line. However, insiders pointed out that Biden visited the production line under construction. From the on-site video, the equipment in the clean room is still in the installation stage and will not affect production, but it will still pollute the clean room, which needs to be cleaned up later.