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US President Joe Biden holds up a silicon wafer while speaking during the virtual CEO Summit on Semiconductor and Supply Chain Resilience from the White House on April 12, 2021. (AP/Yonhap News)

The US Commerce Department posted semiconductor supply chain figures provided by SK Hynix to a US federal government website on Monday.

A look at the US federal government’s opinion solicitation site Regulations.gov on Wednesday showed public data submitted by SK Hynix to explain its position on the matter, along with two files that are not viewable by the general public.

As of the previous day, 189 companies and universities had submitted data in response to a US Commerce Department request for global semiconductor companies to supply information to alleviate supply chain fears. Samsung Electronics also submitted data by the Monday deadline, but its information was still being reviewed by the Commerce Department and had not yet been posted to the site.

In its material for public viewing, SK Hynix stressed that its focus is on memory semiconductors, which have little connection to the recent global semiconductor supply woes.

When asked about any supply bottlenecks or inventory management changes it had experienced, SK Hynix said it was not experiencing any delays or bottlenecks at present and had not recently changed its inventory management approach.

The company did not share information about its client businesses, which had been the biggest focus of controversy over the supply chain data submission request. It explained that this information was not exclusively held by SK Hynix, which meant that it was not “within our sole discretion to disclose such information.”

Instead, it explained that it included information in its confidential data about current transactions for various areas, including servers, PCs, and mobile devices, without disclosing the actual customers.

The company also said that memory semiconductor supplies had remained stable to date, adding that attempts to encourage or force surplus production capabilities would mean mandating solutions for nonexistent issues.

Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics, which submitted its information the day before, said that it had “not submitted information about client companies, based on discussions with the US Commerce Department.”

By Sun Dam-eun, staff reporter

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