SK Hynix says the new plant will work together with the other facilities in Cheongju

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SK Hynix, one of the leading South Korean suppliers of high-bandwidth memory, plans to invest approximately 19 trillion won, roughly $12.9 billion, in building a chip packaging plant in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province (Chungbuk).

According to the company, the new plant will help meet surging demand for AI memory and support the government’s economic balancing plans. It explained, “With the compound annual growth rate of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) between 2025 and 2030 projected at 33%, the importance of preemptively responding to rising HBM demand has increased significantly. We decided on this new investment to ensure a stable response to AI memory demand.”

The company also mentioned that ongoing discussions about regional investment had factored into its decision, making clear that it had a point in deciding to spread growth outside of big cities. The project is scheduled to commence in April and is anticipated to be completed by the end of 2027.

The investment plans follow SK Hynix’s announcement of the opening of a customer exhibition booth at the Venetian Expo, where it showcased its next-generation AI memory solutions at CES 2026 in Las Vegas.

The company said, “Under the theme ‘Innovative AI, Sustainable tomorrow,’ we plan to showcase a wide range of next-generation memory solutions optimized for AI and will work closely with customers to create new value in the AI era.”

The semiconductor company has previously operated both a SK Group joint exhibition and a customer exhibition booth at CES. This year, the company will focus on the customer exhibition booth to expand touchpoints with key customers to discuss potential collaboration.

SK Hynix says the new plant will work together with the other facilities in Cheongju

The SK Hynix new facility will play a central role in packaging HBM and other AI memory products. Once the project ends, the firm will have three major advanced packaging centers in Icheon, Cheongju, and West Lafayette.

The company’s Cheongju Campus already hosts several major sites, including the M11 and M12 fabs, the M15 semiconductor fabrication plant, and the P&T3 packaging and testing facility. So far, the firm expects strong operational synergy between the M15X fab, which is scheduled to start mass wafer loading in February, and the soon-to-be-established P&T7 packaging facility. It explained that Cheongju will support full production stages for NAND flash, DRAM, and HBM after the P&T7 facility comes online. 

Speaking on the project, SK Hynix also noted, “Through the investment in Cheongju P&T7, we aim to go beyond short-term efficiency or gains and, in the mid- to long term, strengthen the nation’s industrial base and help build a structure in which the capital region and local areas grow together.”

Samsung is also expanding its HBM production capacity

SK Hynix’s rival, Samsung, is also planning to improve its HBM production capacity. The firm said it is gearing up to boost its HBM output, with plans to increase capacity by approximately 50% in 2026 to meet the growing demand of its top client, Nvidia.

During its earnings call last October, the Suwon chipmaker outlined its plans for expanded production, intending to build new manufacturing sites. “We are internally reviewing the possibility of expanding HBM production,” Kim Jae-june, Samsung Electronics vice president of memory business, said at the time. 

Moreover, following a high-level meeting in November, the South Korean chipmaker announced plans to invest $41.5 billion in the P5 facility in Pyeongtaek, with operations set to commence in 2028. This planned expenditure is roughly twice as big as what Samsung spent on its previous factories in Pyeongtaek

Notably, Samsung also mentioned that it was receiving active administrative support to speed up the P5 construction process. Back then, there were also reports that the firm was moving forward with the Pyeongtaek cluster, P6’s development.

Currently, KB Securities projects that the firm will increase its DRAM capacity at P4 by around 60,000 wafers per month through the second quarter of 2026. More reports indicate that it also topped Nvidia’s internal tests for sixth-generation HBM (HBM4), surpassing SK Hynix and Micron for use in Rubin processors. The chipmaker’s HBM4 outperformed expectations with 11 Gbps per pin, above Nvidia’s 10 Gbps standard.

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