SK Hynix last week announced plans to build another semiconductor fab near its headquarters in Icheon, South Korea. The production facility is not going to be as big and expensive as other investments, but will contribution to the company’s revenue and bottom line.

The new fab will be located on a 53,000 m2 site near Icheon, Gyeonggi-do province, and will cost SK Hynix around ₩3.5 trillion ($3.13 billion) to build. The company will begin construction of the fab in late 2018 and expects to complete the fab in October, 2020. The maker of memory did not say whether the plant will be operational by that timeframe, or if only the building will be completed, but given typical amount of time it takes semiconductor companies to bring up a new fab online, it is likely that the facility will process actual wafers by late 2020.

By the 'standards' of South Korea-based makers of DRAM and NAND memory, the new fab is small and cheap. Just to put the $3.13 billion in context, Samsung’s total investments in its Pyeongtaek facility will total ₩30 trillion ($26.1 billion) by 2021 and the fab is located on a 759,000 m2 site. SK Hynix itself is operating its own M14 gigantic fab near Icheon. In fact, the addition of the new fab to SK Hynix’s family did not have any effect on its commitment to spend ₩46 trillion (~$41.16 billion) on fabs in the mid and long-term future announced back in 2016. At present SK Hynix is upgrading its M14 fab in South Korea, buidling a new DRAM/3D NAND fab near Cheongju (South Korea), and expanding its C2 fab in Wuxi, China.

Overview of SK Hynix Manufacturing Capacities

Data as of Late 2016 Icheon, South Korea Cheongju, South Korea Wuxi, China M10 M14 Future M8 M11 M12 Future C2 Maximum

Production Capacity

(300-mm wafer starts per month) 130K <200K now



300K after upgrades TBD - 50K 40K TBD 130K

being upgraded Application DRAM Yes Yes ? - Yes Yes Yes Yes NAND 2D + 3D ? - 2D 2D 3D 2D DDIC - - - Yes - - - - PMIC - - - Yes - - - - CIS Yes - - Yes - - - - Wafer Size (mm) 300 200 300 2016 Q3 Total DRAM Output Today (300-mm wafer starts per month) 300K Total NAND Ouput Today (300-mm wafer starts per month) 230K

SK Hynix did not say what kind of products it is going to build in the new fab, but indicated that the decisions will be made considering future market conditions. The company also said that the fab would be constructed “in response to growing demand for memory chips and to secure a future growth engine.” Given modest dimensions of the fab it is possible that it will be used mainly for development of next-gen products and/or process technologies rather than for high-volume production of commodity DRAM or 3D NAND memory.

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