Disappointing forward guidance from U.S. artificial intelligence chipmaker Broadcom has raised concerns that the AI spending boom may be accompanied by rising margin pressures, triggering a sell-off in technology stocks across Asia, particularly in South Korea and Japan.

On Friday, South Korean chip stocks followed their U.S. peers lower after an overnight decline, with the sharp drop prompting the stock exchange operator to briefly halt trading to curb volatility.

SK Hynix, a key supplier of high-bandwidth memory to NVIDIA, saw its shares plunge as much as 9.6% in early afternoon trading. Shares of the world's largest memory chipmaker, Samsung Electronics, fell by up to 7.5%.

Together, these two companies account for roughly half the total market capitalization of the benchmark Kospi index. Their steep declines triggered a five-minute trading halt for index components, a circuit breaker measure activated when the Kospi 200 futures index fell more than 5%. The main Kospi index was down around 5% for much of the morning session.

Analyst Han Ji-young from Kiwoom Securities noted on Friday that South Korean chip stocks are taking a breather after significant gains, as Broadcom's results fell short of some investors' expectations, prompting traders to take profits following the recent strong rally in U.S. tech shares.

SK Hynix was on track for a third consecutive day of losses, while Samsung Electronics was poised for a second straight day of declines. Semiconductor-related stocks also led the losses on Japan's Nikkei index, which fell 1.6%. Chipmaker Renesas Electronics was down 6.3%, semiconductor production equipment maker Tokyo Electron dropped 7.1%, and chip testing equipment maker Advantest declined 4.9%.