[EXCLUSIVE] SK Hynix Makes a Bold Move to Acquire Intel’s Ohio Plant
SK Hynix has decided to acquire the site and facilities of Intel’s semiconductor plant in Ohio and has begun the related process. The move is aimed at responding to pressure from the U.S. government to invest locally and market demands for increased supply.
According to information technology industry sources on the 21st, SK Hynix is pursuing negotiations with Intel to acquire its Ohio semiconductor campus, with the goal of producing memory chips in the United States within five years. An anonymous source familiar with SK Hynix’s internal affairs said, “Following an internal review and government approval, the actual acquisition process is now underway.” The purchase price and timing are still being negotiated.
Intel broke ground on the semiconductor campus in New Albany, Ohio, in 2022 and has completed major foundational work, including concrete pouring and the construction of structural steel frames. The site alone covers approximately 4.05 million square meters, or about 1.2 million pyeong, and is large enough to accommodate eight semiconductor fabrication plants. According to Intel, fully developing the Ohio site and building all eight fabs would cost an estimated $100 billion, or approximately 147.3 trillion won.
The Ohio semiconductor campus drew attention as Intel’s first new manufacturing site in 40 years. Under the first phase of the project, Intel said it would invest approximately $28 billion, or about 41.2 trillion won, to complete two next-generation semiconductor plants—Fab 27 and Fab 28—by 2025. The company also planned to hire 3,000 engineers and manufacture cutting-edge chips there. Then-U.S. President Joe Biden attended the groundbreaking ceremony in September 2022, where he highlighted the significance of the CHIPS Act and reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to strengthening the semiconductor industry.
However, major U.S. technology companies such as Nvidia, Apple, and AMD have relied on Taiwan’s TSMC for contract chip manufacturing, leaving Intel Foundry struggling to secure customers. As its financial difficulties continued, Intel announced large-scale workforce reductions and investment cuts last year and postponed the start of operations at the Ohio plants until 2030 or 2031.
The potential “megadeal” reflects an alignment of interests between SK Hynix and Intel. The Trump administration has been urging Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to expand their investments in the United States as it seeks to reorganize the semiconductor supply chain around domestic production.
Samsung Electronics is investing approximately $37 billion, or about 54.46 trillion won, to build an advanced foundry plant and research and development facilities in Taylor, Texas, with operations scheduled to begin next year. SK Hynix, meanwhile, is investing approximately $3.87 billion, or about 5.69 trillion won, in an advanced packaging facility for high-bandwidth memory in Indiana, which is targeted to begin operations in 2028.
Pressure from the U.S. government for additional investment, however, remains ongoing. Speaking at an event at Micron’s New York plant on the 10th local time, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said, “I want to bring Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to the United States and have them build manufacturing facilities here.”
The semiconductor industry has interpreted Lutnick’s remarks as a demand for the companies to establish not only foundry and packaging facilities in the United States, but also front-end memory production facilities for products such as DRAM. Kim Dae-jong, a professor at Sejong University’s School of Business, said, “The United States is seeking to establish a fully integrated artificial intelligence semiconductor supply chain encompassing design, foundry production, memory, and packaging—all within its own borders.”
In a related development, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Summer Forum in Jeju on the 15th, “Memory chip prices are currently abnormally high. We need to increase supply to bring prices down.”
“We need to build semiconductor plants not only in the Honam region but also in the United States,” Chey added. “We are currently looking for a site. We need to build quickly.”
Intel, for its part, would be able to secure liquidity by selling the Ohio campus, which had become a costly burden, giving it a foundation from which to restructure its foundry business. Intel’s foundry division posted a loss of $2.2 billion last year and recorded another $2.4 billion loss in the first quarter of this year.
Intel recently recruited former SK Hynix CEO Lee Seok-hee as executive vice president in charge of its foundry division and is focusing on strengthening its back-end capabilities, including improving production yields.
We cut open the Kirin 9030 and put it under an electron microscope.
The smallest metal pitch measures 32.5 nanometers. That is tighter than Intel 18A, their brand new leading edge node.
A Chinese fab with no EUV is out-pitching Intel's EUV node by roughly 10 percent. What's going on here? 🤯
"This is the HiSilicon Kirin 9030, the chip inside Huawei's newest flagship phone. A few weeks ago, we cut it open, put it under an electron microscope, and measured the smallest wires inside the chip, the metal pitch. And what we saw was unexpected. The smallest metal pitch inside the Kirin 9030 measures only 32.5 nanometers. That’s smaller than the metal pitch in Panther Lake, which is based on Intel's brand-new 18A node.
A Chinese fab, cut off from the most advanced tools, without EUV, is packing its wires about ten percent tighter than Intel's leading edge EUV node. What’s going on here?"