Five fabless companies, including EMCoreTech, ICTC, Qualitas Semiconductor, TruePixel, and PowerLSI, were selected as promising fabless companies and will receive priority support for prototype production and up to KRW 200 million in funding.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Oh Young-joo) held the 2024 'Fabless Challenge' awards ceremony on the 6th at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, with approximately 80 people in attendance, including domestic assembly manufacturing (foundry) companies, fabless startups, and executives and staff from related organizations.

The 'Fabless Challenge' has been held annually since 2022 to strengthen the domestic system semiconductor industry ecosystem and provide opportunities for promising fabless startups and domestic assembly and production companies (foundries) to grow together and create innovative results.

Unlike previous challenges where only Samsung Electronics Foundry participated, this challenge was accepted by DB HiTek and SK Key Foundry after the Fabless Industry Association requested that all domestic foundries participate in the challenge. As a result, all domestic foundries participated for the first time, and the support budget for each selected company was also expanded to a maximum of 200 million won.

Documents & middo jointly with domestic assembly manufacturing companies (foundries), experts, etc.After a step-by-step evaluation including presentation evaluation, five promising fabless startups were finally selected.

The promising fabless companies selected are ICTK Co., Ltd., Qualitas Semiconductor Co., Ltd., TruePixel Co., Ltd., EMCoreTech Co., Ltd., and PowerLSI Co., Ltd.

ICTC Co., Ltd. produces high-level security chips with anti-tampering against intrusion/non-intrusion attacks.

Qualitas Semiconductor Co., Ltd. possesses General Purpose transmitter IP based on Display Interface applications.

TruePixel Inc. produces high-performance SPAD (Single-Photon Avalanche Diode) sensors.

EMCoreTech Co., Ltd. supplies active electromagnetic interference (EMI) filters.

Power LSI Co., Ltd. manufactures prototypes of system semiconductors with power control technology applied.

For the finally selected startups, three assembly manufacturing companies (foundries) will be given priority access to the prototype manufacturing process (MPW) and will be supported with process technology, etc., and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups will support costs ranging from 100 million won to a maximum of 200 million won per company.

Minister of SMEs and Startups Oh Young-joo said, “In the system semiconductor value chain, fabless and foundries are organically linked, so balanced growth through cooperation is essential for the industry to develop.” He added, “Through the Fabless Challenge, we expect domestic foundries to preempt fabless startups that are potential unicorns, and fabless startups to accelerate the development of new technology semiconductors and create innovative results.”