April 4, 2003

U.S. GOVERNMENT STICKS IT TO HYNIX

 This week the U.S. Commerce Dept. imposed a whopping 57.37% duty on Hynix Semiconductor for receiving illegal Korean Government subsidies.  U.S. Analysts stated that this basically shuts down Hynix exports to the U.S.  Samsung, who was also part of the countervailing duty case was only imposed a .16% duty.  Why there was such a huge difference was not clear in the report.  However, the affects on Samsung are insignificant.

 Hynix, although Korean based, has a fab in Eugene Oregon that will not be affected by this ruling.  Hynix stated that the Oregon fab is running at full capacity and there should be no affect on deliveries of DRAM to U.S. memory assemblers.  However, we have seen in the past that any reason to raise prices can and will be used.  As expected we have seen an increase in pricing but it is expected to be short lived.  There are still mountains of unsold DRAM out there. 

Hynix also stated that they would ship from Korea to other countries before shipping to the U.S. to avoid the duty.  It seems that the U.S. Government can’t control everything, but they will keep trying. 

  S&K