North Korea's Electronics Industry
North Korea recognized the electronics industry as an indispensable industry for factory automation, and since the late 1970s, it has strengthened its willingness to foster the electronics industry. In particular, in line with the world's informatization trend, North Korea has also been highly aware of the importance of computers and automation devices, but has not deviated from its backwardness due to its sensitive nature to economic conditions and technology exchange.
The electronic equipment industry is due to the lack of specialized technology and manpower (hardware), insufficient production facilities, and the limit of imports of technology and high-tech products due to the international strategic material import/export control system. The electronics industry is still in its rudimentary stage. Meanwhile, since the mid-1990s, the home appliance industry in North Korea has been greatly reduced in production due to a decrease in the priority of resource allocation and a shortage of raw materials, and it seems that the industrial base has actually collapsed. TVs, refrigerators, and telephones seem to have dominated the North Korean market.
In spite of various incentive policies such as foreign capital and technology introduction efforts and institutional reorganization due to lack of specialized technology and manpower (hardware), insufficient production facilities and limited import and export of technology and high-tech products due to the international strategic material import/export control system, North Korea's electronics industry sector is still in its rudimentary stage.
In 1960, North Korea made a relatively easily obtainable Ge single crystal among silicon and germanium (Ge), which are most commonly used in semiconductor material development, and made a rudimentary type of semiconductor device, that is, a point contact diode. And transistors (TR), etc., began to be manufactured in a laboratory, but there was no progress. Even after 1960, it seems that the emphasis was placed on the development of semiconductor materials (semiconductors) that are easier to obtain than semiconductor devices, and production of semiconductor materials on a laboratory scale continued in the 1970s. However, while North Korea announced the production of semiconductor materials and semiconductor devices to disguise its own low level of production of semiconductor devices, there was no announcement on the type of production or the amount of production.
The production of the electronic tube began in 1964 with the start of the construction of the Heecheon Electronic Equipment Factory under the support of China and completion in 1970. However, the factory produces bulky old GT tubes that were used in the 50s, but these are only simple products used for cable broadcasting amplifiers, vacuum tube radios and vacuum tube TV receivers. These vacuum tubes appear to be meeting the demand for civilian electronic devices. The CRT announced in 1964 a notice from the Academy of Sciences that significant progress was made in the production of special electronic tubes and research projects in this area, but this seems to have been at the stage of a prototype that has been attracted to the last. From this, it can be seen that North Korea is completely dependent on imports as it is impossible to produce special electronic tubes, including CRTs.
In North Korea, the publication of research papers on resistors and capacitors began to appear in research journals after 1970, but prior to that, the production and performance of these parts were not disclosed at all. The production of carbon film resistors in 1969 and metal film resistors in 1971 was started. In 1972, an assembly plant with a mass production system of variable resistors was established. Capacitors have been able to self-produce crude electrolytic capacitors, paper capacitors, mica capacitors and organic film capacitors since 1970.
In addition to the aforementioned electronic parts and materials such as semiconductor materials and semiconductor devices, electron tubes, resistors, and capacitors, North Korea has placed a great deal of importance on magnetic materials as well as wired broadcasting networks. From now on, we focused on producing speakers for this purpose. In 1954, magnets for speakers were imported and used, but from the 1960s, they began to produce using their own raw materials. However, it is estimated that the production of high-quality permanent magnets (Alico) is impossible to date.
On the other hand, ferrite magnet, which is a soft magnetic material, is a material for memory devices of electronic calculators and general telephones, as well as speakers, transformers, intermediate frequency transformers for radio and TV receivers and communication devices, tuners and antennas, etc. It is an electronic component that is widely used in North Korea, and North Korea began research on this field early. As a result, it was announced in 1972 that the magnetic material manufacturing process was completed, and in 1973 a new method, ferrite with high permeability, was developed.
However, this is an attempt to produce ferrite using its own raw materials, and it seems that it has not been beyond the level of experimental production. North Korea has continued research and development to improve the quality of ferrites since then, but it seems that it has not produced high-quality ferrites that can be used in wired and wireless communication devices and microwave generators. Among other parts, simple switches such as open/close switches can be produced in-house, but complex switches such as rotary switches have poor contact points until the early 1970s, making it difficult to produce themselves, so the entire demand depended on imports.
Meanwhile, since the mid-1990s, the home appliance industry in North Korea has been greatly reduced in production due to a decrease in the priority of resource allocation and a shortage of raw materials, and it seems that the industrial base has actually collapsed. TVs, refrigerators, and telephones seem to have dominated the North Korean market.
North Korea's electronics industry did not exist for the private home appliance industry, but was limited to the sector for the development of some military electronics industry. However, since the development of the civilian electronic industry was allowed only to the extent deemed inevitable for residents' lives, it hindered the various development of the electronic industry. Therefore, the imbalance between military and civilian sectors is deepening. In other words, some missiles and guided electronic technologies have developed considerably and missile development is possible, but it is analyzed that the private industries such as TVs and refrigerators are very inferior.
North Korea is producing large-sized transistor-type radios without producing small-sized transistor-type radios among household electronic devices, and TV receivers cannot produce precision parts such as CRTs at the current technology level. However, electric refrigerators and washing machines can be produced with self-processed materials. The technology level of the North Korean home appliance industry seems to be the level of South Korea's in the late 1980s.
To promote the automation of industrial facilities, North Korea focused on the construction of automation equipment and parts manufacturing plants, but was inferior. This is because North Korea's electronics industry has a short history and lack of experience, so it can only produce very simple parts, instruments and instruments. Automatic telephones and switchboards are still in the prototype stage.
It is noteworthy that North Korea started producing semiconductors that are the most important in the field of electronic components in the early 1960s, but the production of high-purity silicon single crystals and semiconductor devices using them has remained at the laboratory level. Among magnetic materials, permanent magnets are of poor quality and cannot be applied to handsets for wired and wireless communication. And ferrite production is in the lab-scale prototyping stage.
In order to overcome the shortage of technical manpower in the semiconductor field, the lack of basic IC-related technologies, and the lack of production technology, North Korea established a semiconductor integrated circuit research institute within Kim Chaek University of Technology. It is estimated to be.
North Korea is evaluated that the telecommunications industry is considerably backward compared to South Korea so that most of the parts are imported and assembled from Japan, especially for public telephones. From this point of view, it is estimated that the technology level of the North Korean telecommunications industry corresponds to the mid-1980s of South Korea.
North Korea has secured the assembly and production technology of mechanical switchboards, but it is said that it has not yet equipped the electronic switchboard technology. North Korea has produced magnetic switchboards itself, and automatic switchboards have a crossbar method of about 1,000 lines, and electronic switchboards of hundreds of lines have been tested by importing major parts. It seems that household automatic telephones can be produced in-house.
Although North Korea has made ceaseless efforts to improve automation, the normal development of North Korea's automation industry is considered to be far off. The reason is that the electronics industrial technology, which is the basis of the automation industry in North Korea, is weak, there is almost no computer manufacturing technology, and there is a lack of automation technology by computer control and the lack of standardization of parts and materials. Stay at the level of doing.
