South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said on Wednesday it confirmed a roadmap to develop and verify 10 domestically made on-device AI chips by 2030 at the second-half general meeting of the "AI Semiconductor M.AX Alliance". About 150 people attended, including representatives from demand companies, fabless semiconductor design firms, foundries, and intellectual property companies from industry, academia and research institutions.

The roadmap sets the timetable for the 800.2 billion won "K-on-device AI semiconductor technology development project" launched in June. The programme brings together demand companies in automobiles, home appliances, robotics and defence, along with fabless firms and software companies, to jointly develop and demonstrate AI chips, embedded modules and operating software that can be installed in actual products. Development targets include 1 AI chip for autonomous driving, 3 AI chips for smart home appliances, 1 AI chip each for collaborative robots, humanoids, agricultural work robots and unmanned drones, and 1 design asset each for advanced processes and extreme environments, for a total of 10 items.

The ministry also said it accelerated the pace of the programme. Production timing for 1 home appliance AI chip will be moved forward by more than 1 year from the original plan, and other divisions will also speed up 추진. A joint public-private strategic committee that will oversee implementation of the roadmap will also be launched, co-chaired by the industry's vice minister and Kyung Hee University President Jin-sang Kim (김진상). The committee plans to review and confirm annual development plans in early each year, check progress, and coordinate technical difficulties and conflicts of interest among companies.

Under the roadmap, demand companies will move away from a passive role of only purchasing products and become innovative buyers participating in the entire semiconductor development process. As lead organisations for the projects, they will share required specifications for development and mass production, and provide testbeds in real-use environments to support securing references for product integration demonstrations. Foundries will prioritise allocation for making domestic on-device prototypes, including 2-nanometre-class ultrafine processes, to prevent development delays caused by manufacturing bottlenecks.

Samsung Electronics' foundry business division will identify prototype production demand for 2027 in advance, coordinate it with existing production schedules and reflect it with priority in process allocation. The total is 21 runs: 3 at 2 nanometres, 4 at 4 nanometres, 3 at 5 nanometres, 3 at 8 nanometres, 3 at 14 nanometres and 5 at 28 nanometres, combining MPW, which prints multiple designs on one wafer, and single-run production. The ministry also explained that domestic and foreign IP companies can ease the development burden on fabless firms by making IP payments more flexible and providing common IP packages.

Min-woo Lee (이민우), head of the ministry's Industry Growth Office, said "true win-win in the semiconductor industry should not be proven by a promise of cooperation, but by the result of jointly developed technology being adopted in actual products". "Through this project, we will open a new growth path in which the global manufacturing competitiveness of our demand companies leads to the technological capabilities and commercialisation performance of domestic fabless firms," he said.