The fourth revolution is characterized by many technologies in such areas as the digital, biological and artificial intelligence fields all being merged together that can create a new economic and social system. Soeil views the effective merging of technologies as critical for the country's long-term growth.

It said some 221 billion won will be used to carry out research and development projects on high-power, ultra-light and high-speed semiconductors by 2023, while 13 billion won will go into the educational program to train nearly 3,000 experts and researchers in the next four years.

The government and local chipmakers will also join hands to inject 25.8 billion won into a project to develop next-generation materials and processes, the ministry said.

South Korean companies, such as Samsung Electronics Co., have an upper hand in the world's memory chip business, but they lag far behind in the non-memory-based system semiconductor market, where Intel Corp. is the first mover.

The ministry said the government will make full efforts to bolster the semiconductor industry as it can play an important role in the potential sectors, such as smart vehicles. (Yonhap)