August 12 news, according to Reuters reports, sources familiar with the matter leaked, just after the formal completion of the U.S. "chip bill" legislation, South Korean memory chip maker SK Hynix will build a state-of-the-art chip packaging plant in the United States, and will break ground around the first quarter of 2023.
The newspaper quoted a source who asked not to be named as saying that SK Hynix's plan to build a new factory in the United States is expected to cost "billions of dollars" and will create 1,000 jobs in the future, and will enter the mass production phase in 2025-2026. The source also noted that the currently expected location of the plant could be near a university with engineering-related talent.
In fact, it was not long ago that SK Hynix announced that it would invest an amount of US$22 billion in the US for the development of the semiconductor, green energy and bioscience sectors. Of this amount, US$15 billion is expected to be invested in the semiconductor sector. Specifically, the US$15 billion will be used for research and development-related programmes, materials development, and the construction of advanced packaging technology and test equipment.
The sources further noted that SK Hynix will also establish a national network of R&D collaborations and related facilities for packaging SK Hynix's memory chips, and other logic chips designed by US companies for machine learning and artificial intelligence applications.
As a result of the recent passage of the Chip and Science Act and the completion of legislation in the US, the bill will provide a total of US$52.7 billion in subsidies and approximately US$24 billion in tax benefits for chip manufacturing and research, of which approximately US$39 billion will be provided to chipmakers over five years. SK Hynix expects to invest in chip packaging plants in the US that will be eligible for funding under the bill, the sources said.
It is worth noting that on the day the Chip and Science Act completed legislation, US memory chip maker Micron also announced that it would invest US$40 billion in building advanced memory chip manufacturing facilities in the US by 2030. It is hoped that the global share of US-based memory chip manufacturing will be increased from 2% to 10%.
