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SK hynix to invest $12.9b in AI memory plant
SK hynix said on April 22 that it plans to invest 19 trillion won (US$12.85 billion), in a new advanced packaging plant in South Korea,
The construction set to start this month to meet rising demand for AI memory.
The plant will focus on advanced packaging used to make AI memory products such as high-bandwidth memory chips.
🔗 Source: Reuters
🧠 Food for thought
Implications, context, and why it matters.
The new plant puts chip making beside packaging
- P&T7 will sit in Cheongju, South Korea, next to the M15X plant that makes the advanced Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DRAM) wafers used in AI memory 1.
- That setup should speed work between wafer production and packaging by keeping both steps in one place 1.
- At about 231,400 square meters, P&T7 is set to rank among the world’s largest sites for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) packaging and testing 1.
- It is one piece of a three-part packaging plan, alongside operations in Icheon and a planned US$4 billion site in West Lafayette, Indiana, which SK Hynix calls America’s first advanced packaging and research and development hub for HBM 2.
The push into AI memory is squeezing standard DRAM
- SK Hynix is putting more money into high-margin HBM, part of a wider industry shift that is tightening supply of conventional memory chips for PCs and standard servers 3.
- Buyers of standard memory are feeling it, with some DDR5 kits climbing from under US$100 to more than US$300 over the past year 3.
- The move makes packaging a central contest in the memory business as SK Hynix adds capacity while holding the lead in HBM 4.
- Spending is rising fast. The company also ordered chipmaking equipment worth 12 trillion won (US$7.97 billion) from ASML, the Dutch semiconductor equipment supplier 5.
