韩国AI芯片基板企业加速扩产，Daeduck等公司放弃保守负债原则

The semiconductor substrate industry, enjoying a boom driven by growth in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, is accelerating capacity expansion backed by bold investments. Mid-sized companies in particular are stepping away from their conservative management stance, reexamining their debt-free principles amid expectations that the AI chip market will grow over the long term. Their aim is to rapidly expand the share of high-value-added AI substrates rather than low-cost substrates used in smartphones.
According to related industry sources on the 21st, Daeduck Electronics disclosed the previous day that it will invest 497 billion won by 2027 to expand production facilities for semiconductor packaging substrates. The move comes just two months after the company announced in May that it would invest 213 billion won in production equipment for flip-chip chip-scale packages (FC-CSP), a high-value substrate. With this, the company has unveiled large-scale investment plans reaching 710 billion won this year alone. "We decided to invest not simply because of a demand recovery, but because we expect supply to fall far short," a company official said. "We plan to invest across our semiconductor packaging substrate facilities as a whole." The official added, "We see AI substrate areas such as FC-CSP and flip-chip ball grid array (FC-BGA) as a new growth engine."
Package substrates for AI servers are high-value-added products requiring more advanced technology than substrates for PCs or smartphones, and are considered a key component that determines the performance and stability of AI chips such as graphics processing units (GPUs). For this reason, substrates are drawing attention as the field set to benefit most in the AI era after memory, which is led by Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Micron. As AI chip development advances toward stacking multiple chips, demand for substrates, which handle electrical connections between chips, continues to grow. The securities industry has raised the possibility of a medium- to long-term supply shortage as substrates become larger and more multi-layered alongside the advancement of AI accelerators.
This is prompting the semiconductor substrate industry to break away from its conservative management stance. Daeduck Electronics is considering external borrowing on the occasion of this facility investment. As of the end of the first quarter this year, its cash holdings (including short-term financial products) stood at 215.8 billion won, about one-third of the investment amount. However, with borrowings at just 9.5 billion won, effectively maintaining debt-free management, analysts say now is the right time to raise external funds. Its debt ratio, at just 30%, falls far short of the appropriate level for the manufacturing industry (100%), suggesting financial soundness will not be significantly affected by increased borrowing. "Our stance of minimizing borrowings remains the same, so we plan to fund the investment on our own and borrow only for the shortfall," a Daeduck Electronics official said. "As big tech firms are launching investments first, we are considering fund-raising within that trend, and we are keeping external borrowing open as well."
Mid-sized firm Simmtech (222800) is also pushing to expand package substrate capacity for next-generation memory chips with a total of 40 billion won. For this, it received approval for a 20 billion won low-interest loan through the National Growth Fund. Isu Petasys will also significantly increase its production capacity starting in the second half of this year. According to DB Securities, monthly output of multi-layered substrates, a high-value-added product, is expected to expand more than 2.5-fold from 3,000 square meters in the first half of this year to 8,000 square meters in the second half.
The earnings of these companies are expected to improve significantly at least through next year. According to FnGuide, the combined operating profit of Daeduck Electronics (353200), Simmtech and Isu Petasys (007660) is forecast to surge about 48%, from 768.2 billion won this year to 1.135 trillion won next year.
However, intensifying competition in substrate expansion in East Asian semiconductor markets such as China and Taiwan is a concern for the domestic industry. In China alone, more than 20 printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturers announced expansion plans in the first half of this year. Taiwan's Unimicron, considered a leader in high-spec substrates for AI servers, expanded its facility investment plan by 75% from its initial target this year, while Japan's Ibiden, the world's top semiconductor substrate maker, plans to invest 500 billion yen (about 4.5368 trillion won) by 2028. "Taiwan and Japan have long solidified their market dominance in the substrate field, and now China is also aggressively expanding investment," an official in the semiconductor materials, parts and equipment industry said. "Multifaceted support is needed so that domestic substrate companies can leap into global players."