SK Hynix to Build $106 Billion Fab Cluster: 800,000 Wafer Starts a Month
by Anton Shilov on April 2, 2021 1:00 PM EST
Capping off a busy week for fab-related news, South Korea authorities this week gave SK Hynix a green light to build a new, 120 trillion won ($106.35 billion) fab complex. The fab cluster will be primarily used to build DRAM for PCs, mobile devices, and servers, using process technologies that rely on extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV). The first fab in the complex will go online in 2025.
The new cluster will house four huge semiconductor fabrication plants, which will be located on a 4.15 million square-meter site, reports The Korea Herald. The four fabs will have a planned capacity of around 800,000 wafer starts per month (WSPM), which will make the site one of the world's biggest semiconductor production hubs. Keeping in mind that we are dealing with EUV fabs, it is not surprising that a huge 200,000-WSPM plant with EUV tools will cost SK Hynix north of $25 billion. The fab cluster will be located near Yongin, South Korea, 50 kilometers south of Seoul, according to Yonhap news agency that cites the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.
The new fabs will be used to make various types of DRAM using SK Hynix's upcoming production technologies that will use extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. And with a start date still years away, we're likely looking at a fab that will be used to manufacture DDR5, LPDDR5X, and other future types of DRAM.
SK Hynix reportedly plans to start construction of the first fab in the Yongin cluster in the fourth quarter of 2021. Given the expected size of the massive building and the amount of time needed to folly load it with production equipment, SK Hynix expects this first fab to be completed in 2025.
It is necessary to note that just several years ago SK Hynix and Samsung used to build fabs that could produce both DRAM and NAND flash memory – or at least be converted with a minimal amount of effort. This is not the case today as DRAM production now heavily relies on lithography equipment, whereas 3D NAND production uses loads of etching tools, which is why the fabs for different types of memory have to be equipped completely differently.
The fab cluster in Yongin will be SK Hynix's second major DRAM site in South Korea after the company's primary DRAM hub near Icheon that houses its M10, M14, and M16 fabs. The M16 fab was completed in February and will be used for DRAM production using SK Hynix's EUV-based 1a process technology starting the second half of 2021.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
41 Comments
View All Comments
Crazyeyeskillah - Saturday, April 10, 2021 - link
this website used to talk about technology, now it's just another breeding ground for infighting.sweetca - Saturday, September 10, 2022 - link
Chess-mate!WaltC - Saturday, April 3, 2021 - link
Yeah, these kids today--they see a snowstorm hit somewhere out of season, or a hurricane--or tornado--and having never seen these things before, it's "The sky is falling--climate change is killing us all--we're going to die!" America currently has the most stupid "press" in living memory (our broadcast press peddles more dumb left-wing political dogma than fact)--and I've been around for a while. The current Congress is even sometimes more stupid than the press! I'm just glad I got an education in the US when it meant something, and when people were smart enough to draw a line between political claptrap and fact.StevoLincolnite - Saturday, April 3, 2021 - link
You are confusing weather with climate.Don't be *that* uneducated person who sprouts nonsense...
But congrats! You got an education in the USA! But... Clearly it looks like it failed you if you don't know the difference between Climate and Weather.
Dizoja86 - Saturday, April 3, 2021 - link
Sounds more like you just don't like the evolution of education and think that retaining obsolete information makes you intelligent. Facts don't care about your feelings, friend.GetItStraight - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
WaltC, nice try in trolling. The truth of course is that the GOP and the right wing press has successfully gaslit and brainwashed millions of folks into believing many big lies, including that global warming is a hoax, Covid-19 is a hoax, the election was a fraud, Trump will be reinstalled as president 3 months ago, wait, 2, make that 1, oops, any day now, Congress is controlled by cannibals, and the Cali wildfires were started by Jewish lasers from space. One of the many tragedies here is that science has died in these folks, leaving America less competitive with foreign competition. Biden is trying hard to save some of these folks, but the jury's still out on whether the hard-core far right ones are too far gone to become functioning members of society again or should just be written off as enemies of the state and rational thinking.Jp7188 - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
I love Anandtech for the articles, but also because the community is educated, informative, and respectful. I humbly ask that we resist the urge to turn the forums in to a mud slinging contest. By all means argue the nature of a technical point for the enlightenment of all, but please leave out the parts that attack personal traits.FreckledTrout - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
That was a bit harsh. The OP has a very valid point. I do not think any fab plans to have a 100% state wide power outage that last 3+ days. The usually try to get multiple grids to feed them but if all the grids collapse for three days they will be down for most of that time.sweetca - Saturday, September 10, 2022 - link
Americans are dumb, blah blah - thank you for communicating this message on an entire ecosystem built by American ingenuity - Satellites, semiconductors, operating systems, android, iphone, gps, arpanet, etc...PS You are welcome for the Covid vaccine - a product of the crappiest health care system in the world!
edzieba - Wednesday, April 7, 2021 - link
Texas grid failure was down to the exact same factors as the last two Texas mass power grid failures. Check P.176 of the report on the 2011 grid failure (https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/0... that basically says "here's what we told you to fix after the 1989 gird failure to prevent it happening again. You didn't do any of it, and the same thing happened again. Fix it this time or it will happen again". Surprise surprise, they didn't do any of it and it happened yet again.