SK Hynix Breaks Ground on Indiana Fab... "Annual Production of Hundreds of Thousands of HBM Units"

SK Hynix held a ground-breaking ceremony on the 27th (local time) for its next-generation HBM advanced packaging fab in West Lafayette, Indiana.

This marks SK Hynix's first production base to be built in the United States, with the company aiming to complete the cleanroom—the space where packaging takes place—by October 2028 and begin mass production of HBM in the second half of the following year.

This will be the first time that HBM, which has never been produced in the United States before, is manufactured by a Korean company.

Kwak Noh-jung, President and CEO of SK Hynix, who attended the ground-breaking ceremony, stated that the annual production capacity of the Indiana fab for HBM would reach hundreds of thousands of units.

This means that hundreds of thousands of DRAM wafers will be used annually at this plant to manufacture HBM through post-processing.

Currently, SK Hynix's known DRAM production volume in the industry is about 6 million wafers per year, a portion of which is used for HBM.

"The Indiana project establishes the first HBM production base in the U.S.," President Kwak said. "It will serve as a core base for supplying 'Made in USA' HBM for the first time, as well as a major foundation for strengthening the U.S. semiconductor supply chain and contributing to economic security."

SK Hynix is investing approximately $4 billion in the construction of the Indiana fab.

Under the CHIPS Act, the U.S. government will provide up to $450 million in grants and $500 million in loans.

The Indiana fab will simultaneously carry out advanced packaging (post-processing)—which bundles or stacks DRAM chips produced in Korea to make HBM—and research and development (R&D) for next-generation HBM.

The latest HBM currently produced by SK Hynix is the 6th-generation (HBM4) featuring 12 stacked DRAMs, a product that is also mounted on Nvidia's cutting-edge AI accelerator, "Vera Rubin."

As Nvidia plans to continuously enhance the performance of its AI accelerators, there is a strong possibility that the HBM produced by SK Hynix at the Indiana fab will also be next-generation rather than the 6th generation.

Currently, SK Hynix is developing the 7th-generation (HBM4E).

To develop and test next-generation HBM, SK Hynix has signed an R&D enhancement Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) partnering with Purdue University, which is recognized for its excellence in engineering.

Through this, the company plans to attract top talent from Purdue University.

The location where the plant is being built is also on Purdue University land in West Lafayette.

Once the fab is fully operational, a workforce of about 1,000 people is expected to be employed.

President Kwak introduced that considering the fab construction and operation personnel as well as the supply chain of over 100 material, parts, and equipment partners, about 7,000 direct and indirect jobs are expected to be created.

Attendees at the ground-breaking ceremony included President Kwak, South Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Kang Kyung-wha, Indiana Governor Mike Braun, and U.S. Senator Todd Young (Republican-Indiana).

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.