South Korea's storage chips face major risks: Israeli bromine supply is within range of Iran's missile attacks.

Bromine is a professional chemical supplier that produces raw materials for semiconductor-grade hydrogen bromide gas. Korean companies rely on this key gas in all dynamic random access memory and NAND flash chip production. Currently, Korean memory giants Samsung and SK Hynix together account for approximately 70% of the global DRAM market share, serving as key suppliers in the global market, but 97.5% of their bromine imports come from Israel. There are no other global bromine suppliers with excess capacity to replace Israel's void, making Israeli supply crucial. Israel-based multinational company ICL Group is the core producer of bromine, utilizing the highly bromine-rich Dead Sea for production and achieving the world's lowest cost. Israel and Jordan together account for two-thirds of global bromine supply. However, due to the convenience of production and processing, ICL has set up bromine extraction and hydrogen bromide gas conversion facilities near the Dead Sea in Sodom, less than 35 kilometers from the Negev Desert that Iran attacked three weeks ago, within range of Iran's missile strikes.