SEOUL, August 28 (AJP) - SK hynix broke ground Thursday on a more than $4 billion advanced packaging facility in Indiana, laying the foundation for its first U.S. production base for high-bandwidth memory as the Korean chipmaker moves closer to major American AI customers.
The world's leading HBM supplier held a groundbreaking ceremony at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, attended by SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung, senior SK Group executives and U.S. state and government officials.
The facility will become the first HBM advanced packaging production site in the United States, with mass production of next-generation HBM scheduled to begin in the second half of 2029, Kwak said during the ceremony.
SK hynix plans to invest more than $4 billion in the Indiana project, which will combine advanced packaging production with a research and development center. Foundation work is already underway, with construction of key facilities scheduled to begin in October and the cleanroom targeted for completion by October 2028.
The company expects the facility to eventually reach annual capacity of hundreds of thousands of wafers. Advanced HBM wafers produced in South Korea will be shipped to Indiana for packaging and testing before being delivered to customers, creating an integrated production network spanning the two countries.
The investment comes as demand for HBM, a critical memory component used alongside AI accelerators, continues to surge with the expansion of generative AI infrastructure.
SK hynix has emerged as a key HBM supplier in the AI boom, and the Indiana facility will give the company a U.S.-based packaging operation closer to major AI chip and technology customers.
The company will also establish an advanced packaging R&D center in Indiana to develop next-generation packaging technologies with customers, universities and business partners. SK hynix plans to conduct joint research with Purdue University in areas including HBM system integration and advanced packaging.
SK hynix is also in discussions with more than 100 materials, parts and equipment suppliers as it seeks to establish a local semiconductor supply chain around the facility. The project is expected to create about 7,000 direct and indirect jobs.
The U.S. government has awarded SK hynix $458 million under the CHIPS program to support the advanced packaging and R&D project, according to a U.S. Commerce Department official speaking at the ceremony.
"Today, it is not just the start of a construction project. Today, SK hynix begins building a new future for AI in the United States," Kwak said.
"In the AI era, producing the best memory is not enough," he added. "We must also develop customized memory solutions for our customers' AI systems, and through advanced packaging, we must maximize the performance of the memory, the AI chip and the entire system."
AJP Takeaways:
- SK hynix broke ground on a more than $4 billion Indiana facility that will become the first U.S. production base for HBM advanced packaging.
- The chipmaker targets cleanroom completion in 2028 and mass production of next-generation HBM in the second half of 2029.
- The project combines production and R&D, linking Korean HBM wafer manufacturing with U.S. packaging and testing while creating about 7,000 direct and indirect jobs.
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