ABSTRACT
For Hyundai, the fabulous riches of the electronic age always seemed one tantalizing step out of reach. It was to get them at last that Hyundai Electronics — and other Korean companies — had to keep raising the stakes. By 1989 Hyundai was selling IM (1 megabyte) DRAM chips. By 1991, it was selling 4M DRAMs. More significant still, they were Hyundai products — not done according to design by an American or Japanese company. Just as dramatic, Hyundai was increasing production of personal computers — by the fall of 1992 designing and assembling them under the aegis of Hyundai Electronics America in San Jose. Samsung ranked far-and-away first among Korean computer manufacturers, but Hyundai had emerged from failure to become a powerhouse in chips and PCs on a par with Goldstar and ahead of Daewoo, excluding the consumer items ranging from TV sets to rice-cookers that Hyundai avoided. By 1992 semiconductors ranked as the country’s single largest export, grossing $6.8 billion in foreign sales, including $2.9 billion in sale of chips actually fabricated in Korea, another $3.9 billion from those assembled and packaged in Korea for foreign makers and re-exported.
