South Korea's LX Semicon has put more than 60 patents covering silicon carbide (SiC) power devices and epitaxial wafers up for sale as a single package, marking the final stage of its withdrawal from the SiC business.

Patent Portfolio Sold as One Package

According to Korean outlet The Elec, the patents — covering SiC MOSFET devices and epitaxial wafers — are not being sold individually but transferred as a combined portfolio, with the entire package expected to fetch less than KRW 1 billion. On the device side, the patents cover core structural designs such as planar and trench gate structures, termination structures and gate pads. The epitaxial wafer patents point further upstream in the chain: a thin crystalline layer grown on an SiC substrate, on which the devices themselves are actually fabricated.

The geographic footprint of the portfolio is broad, with filings in South Korea, the United States, mainland China, Europe, Japan and Taiwan, and patent terms running as far out as 2045. A domestic Korean power semiconductor company has reportedly been selected as the preferred negotiating partner. Broad technical coverage and long remaining protection, yet a price tag below KRW 1 billion, point to a simple reality: patents detached from production-line validation, yield data and customer qualification are viewed by buyers as a way to shorten time to entry rather than as assets that generate revenue on their own.

From Diversification Push to Strategic Retrenchment

LX Semicon entered the field in 2021, acquiring device manufacturing equipment and patents from LG Innotek — most of them SiC-related — under then-CEO Son Bo-ik, who aimed to reduce the company's heavy reliance on display driver ICs (DDIs). Strategy shifted after Lee Yun-tae took over as CEO in late 2023. As slowing electric vehicle demand dampened growth in the SiC market, the company scaled down its SiC R&D organization in 2024, and its power device joint venture with Japan's Sanken Electric was liquidated in the first half of this year. At the annual general meeting in March, LX Semicon added the transfer, assignment and licensing of technology, know-how and intellectual property to its stated business objectives — a move that now looks like the groundwork for this sale.

The financial pressure is equally clear. Revenue declined from KRW 2.1193 trillion in 2022 to KRW 1.6391 trillion in 2025, and fell a further 7.6% year on year to KRW 789.9 billion in the first half of 2026, with operating profit down 39% to KRW 42.6 billion. DDIs still account for more than 86% of revenue, and some major customer orders have gone to Novatek.

The Market Turning as LX Semicon Exits

The timing is notable, because the industry is moving in the opposite direction. In 2025, 6-inch conductive substrates were caught in a price war and at points approached production cost. Entering 2026, demand from 800V EV platforms and high-voltage power distribution in AI data centers has driven a structural rebound in substrate pricing, with utilization rates at leading manufacturers generally above 90%, and Infineon and STMicroelectronics among those that have issued multiple rounds of price adjustments.

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