SEOUL — As Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix reap historic revenues propelled by the global artificial intelligence boom, industry analysts and historians are searching deeper for the secret behind South Korea’s memory chip supremacy. A newly highlighted perspective suggests that today's semiconductor prowess may not be a sudden 20th-century miracle, but rather the evolutionary descendant of Korea’s ancient printing and manufacturing traditions.

In the book The Big History of Semiconductors, written by a KAIST alumnus and former Samsung semiconductor engineer, the complex manufacturing of microchips is reimagined as the "21st-century evolution of printing." Moving away from a purely electrical engineering narrative, the work frames semiconductors as a grand civilizational achievement born from humanity's long history of documentation, metallurgy, and collective craftsmanship.

At the core of the thesis is a striking technical parallel: just as ancient printers transferred ink from a master plate onto paper, modern fabrication plants project microscopic circuit patterns onto silicon wafers using advanced light sources.

The author draws compelling historical parallels to Korea’s rich archival legacy. The meticulous quality control required to produce the roughly 80_000 wooden printing blocks of the Tripitaka Koreana—a UNESCO Memory of the World—mirrors the uniform replication and precision required in modern DRAM and NAND flash manufacturing. Similarly, the meticulous craft of Joseon Dynasty metal movable type foundries reflects the exactitude needed today, such as in High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) production, where multiple silicon dies must be vertically aligned with microscopic precision.

The book expands its global comparative framework as well. It likens China’s historical mastery of metal casting and process documentation to Taiwan’s foundry ecosystem, compares Japan’s traditional washi paper-making to the ultra-high purity of silicon substrates, and attributes the technological integration of lithography giant ASML to the Netherlands' legacy of precision printing and open intellectual exchange.

Ultimately, this cultural-historical approach argues that South Korea's leadership in memory chips is anchored in a deep-seated national aptitude for precision manufacturing, strict quality standards, and collective dedication—a civilizational DNA that continues to power the cutting edge of the global tech economy.

[ⓒ Global Economic Times. 무단전재-재배포 금지]