SK海力士为印第安纳州40亿美元HBM先进封装工厂举行奠基仪式

WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana -- South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix officially broke ground on Thursday on what will be its first U.S. plant for producing high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component that underpins the artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout.
The over $4 billion project includes an advanced chip packaging facility as well as a research and development complex in West Lafayette, which is home to Purdue University.
The site spans nearly 133.5 acres (54 hectares) and is expected to start operation in October 2028, with mass production of HBM scheduled to begin in the second half of 2029. The more than $4 billion investment includes $458 million in direct funding under the CHIPS and Science Act enacted by the administration of then-U.S. President Joe Biden.
"America stands at the center of AI innovation... following our ADR [American depositary receipt] listing [in July] we are taking our next step," SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-Jung said at the groundbreaking ceremony Thursday morning, which was attended by Indiana Gov. Mike Braun and Sen. Todd Young.
The advanced chip packaging plant will assemble next-generation HBM chips including the 12-layer HBM4E that will be used in Nvidia's upcoming Vera-Rubin architecture and promises more memory bandwidth and faster speed. The fab will have the capacity to produce more than 100,000 wafers per year.
Once the project is complete, SK Hynix will fabricate the wafers in South Korea and then ship them to Indiana for packaging and final testing before shipping to U.S. customers.
Skyrocketing demand for AI chips has pushed up the cost of memory chips in general as leading makers SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology prioritize the manufacturing of high-value products such HBM.
SK Hynix has dominated the HBM market since the AI boom was kicked off by ChatGPT in 2022. Chairman Tae-won of its parent SK Group said in March that the global memory chip shortage is set to last until 2030 as the industry struggles to keep pace with AI demand.
Hyunjoong Kim, construction lead of SK Hynix's Indiana fab, or plant, told reporters on Wednesday that there will be more than 3,000 workers on site at the peak of construction.
SK Hynix is planning to directly hire 1,000 employees for the location in the midwestern state of Indiana. In total, it is estimated the project will create 7,000 jobs directly and indirectly across construction, R&D and operations, the company said.
Zhihong Chen, director of the Birck Nanotechnology Center at Purdue University, which has the largest academic semiconductor clean room in the U.S., told reporters on Wednesday that the center is working closely with SK Hynix in workforce development. Chen added that there will be 150 trained students ready to be hired when the chip plant is up and running in 2028.
At the Thursday event, SK Hynix and Purdue signed a memorandum of understanding for R&D collaboration in advanced packaging technologies, including HBM.
The $4 billion project will also attract more than 100 SK Hynix suppliers and partners to the area as Indiana grows into another semiconductor hub in the U.S.
"Given the role microchips play in powering and securing our nation, and the clear catastrophe that would follow if our supply of these was cut off, why would we ever reply on the goodwill of other nations for their fabrication," Sen. Young said at the event.