Next-generation V2X (vehicle-to-everything) semiconductor specialist Ettifos has been selected as the lead institution for the government's defense research and development (R&D) project.
Ettifos said on the 24th it was finally selected as the lead research and development institution for a new task in the "2026 second materials and parts technology development project," announced by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources and managed by the Korea Planning&Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT), titled "Development of defense semiconductors for ultra-high-speed, ultra-low-latency communication modems for heterogeneous platforms in a manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) system."
The project will run for 30 months from July this year to December 2028, with a total R&D budget of 3.52 billion won, including 2.375 billion won in government funding.
The core of the R&D is to develop, using purely domestic technology, an ultra-high-speed, ultra-low-latency ASIC modem chip that supports MANET (Mobile Ad-hoc Network) specialized for MUM-T, which consolidates manned combat systems and unmanned combat systems such as drones and robots into a single network. MANET is a technology that forms a mesh-type network through direct connections between devices without separate base stations or fixed communications networks, and is regarded as a key technology for enabling stable communications in battlefield environments.
As the lead institution, Ettifos will oversee the design of a proprietary wireless access specification and the development of the ASIC modem chip. Hanwha Aerospace(012450), Korea's largest defense systems corporations, will participate as a demand company to support deriving system requirements and integrated test and evaluation, and the Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA) will handle development of a verification test platform and internationally accredited testing and evaluation. The prototype developed will be fabricated using Samsung Foundry processes.
The project is also significant for strengthening Korea's defense semiconductor supply chain. The overseas dependency for defense semiconductors used in domestic weapons systems is known to reach 98.9%. If the project is completed successfully, it is expected not only to substitute imports of MANET modem chips but also to build a foundation to escape export controls by countries holding core original technologies and to enhance the global export competitiveness of K-defense.
The project is an investment-linked program that ties government R&D with private investment attraction, and it is expected to create synergy with Ettifos's ongoing Series C fundraising. In particular, with Hanwha Aerospace participating as a demand company that hopes to purchase or license modem chips meeting performance requirements after development, the project has secured a commercialization path from the R&D stage, which is cited as a strength.
Kim Ho-jun, CEO of Ettifos, said, "This selection means Ettifos's communications semiconductor design capabilities accumulated in the V2X field have been recognized as competitive in the defense sector," adding, "We will expand our business scope beyond vehicle and AI communications infrastructure into the defense communications field and grow into a global fabless company leading the localization of communications semiconductors."