[News Space=Reporter seungwon lee] Samsung Electronics reached a final agreement on the 20th (local time) to receive up to $4.745 billion in semiconductor support funds from the U.S. Department of Commerce. SK Hynix had previously confirmed $458 million in support from the Department of Commerce the previous day.

However, Samsung Electronics had initially agreed to receive support of $6.4 billion (approximately KRW 9.27 trillion) when signing the preliminary memorandum of transaction (PMT) in April, but this final decision reduced the amount by approximately 26%, drawing attention to the background.

From Samsung Electronics' perspective, there are assessments that the scale of support is not small compared to the investment amount, and with the confirmation of the subsidy payment from the U.S. Department of Commerce, there is analysis that the uncertainty caused by the inauguration of the Donald Trump administration has also been reduced.

According to foreign media on the 20th (local time), the Biden administration has decided to provide over $6.3 billion in support to Samsung Electronics and Texas Instruments (TI) to expand their U.S. semiconductor production facilities. Of this, $4.745 billion (approximately KRW 6.878 trillion) will be paid to Samsung Electronics and $1.6 billion to TI.

The Commerce Department said in a statement that day that "this funding supports Samsung's investment of more than $37 billion over several years to transform its existing facilities in Central Texas into a comprehensive ecosystem for the development and production of cutting-edge semiconductors in the United States," adding that "this includes two advanced logic fabs, an R&D fab, and an expansion of its existing Austin facility." 

Experts generally believe that although the subsidy size has been reduced, it is still a significant amount compared to the scale of investment. The reduction is because Samsung Electronics was originally known to have planned to invest a total of 45 billion dollars (64.52 trillion won) in U.S. semiconductor facilities by 2030, but recently adjusted the investment amount by about 8 billion dollars in consideration of demand.

Although the subsidy Samsung Electronics receives has decreased, the subsidy ratio compared to the total investment amount is high compared to other companies, at about 12.8%. Previously, the Department of Commerce confirmed subsidies of 6.6 billion dollars (9.44 trillion won) to TSMC, 7.866 billion dollars (11.25 trillion won) to Intel, and 6.165 billion dollars (8.8 trillion won) to Micron, and the day before, confirmed subsidies of up to 458 million dollars (about 663.4 billion won) to SK Hynix.

“With this investment by Samsung, the United States is now officially the only country on Earth with all five of the world’s leading-edge semiconductor manufacturers,” said U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Lamondo. “This is an incredible achievement, ensuring a steady domestic supply of the cutting-edge semiconductors that are critical to AI and our national security, while creating hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs and transforming communities across America.”

Lael Brainard, director of the National Economic Council (NEC), also evaluated Samsung Electronics as “the only semiconductor company that is a leader in both advanced memory and advanced logic semiconductors.”

“The agreement with the U.S. government under the Semiconductor Act will be another milestone as we continue to build and invest in a cutting-edge semiconductor ecosystem in the U.S.,” said Vice Chairman and Head of Device Solutions (DS) Division at Samsung Electronics, Young-hyun Jeon. “We look forward to further collaboration with our U.S. partners to meet the evolving demands of the coming AI-centric era.”