To help many of them get jobs, it set up incubators offering cheap rent and lab facilities. The government also changed rules that once prevented researchers from collecting royalties on their intellectual property, which in the past was simply given to Korean chaebol , or conglomerates, for free. This year alone, former ETRI engineers have spawned 59 startups, compared with 13 in 1997. And they're not just dot-coms. The Taedok area is buzzing with specialty chip-design firms, makers of wireless and optical telecom devices, and software houses.
Many new entrepreneurs are grateful to be liberated.
Now, Ryum has his own Taedok company, Advanced Semiconductor Business Inc., which owns 35 international patents. He is collecting royalties on his silicon germanium and production processes and is producing a variety of specialty chips. Among the most promising are devices for wireless telecom and for use in auto navigation systems. Other Taedok labs also are generating spin-offs. One such tie-up is with Samyang Genex, a producer of corn syrup that diversified into biotech in the 1980s.