This article was published on the ChosunBiz MoneyMove (MM) site at 11:31 a.m. on Nov. 2, 2025.
There are industry rumors that SK hynix's U.S. subsidiary Solidigm may be sold. Industry insiders familiar with the company's internal situation said, "In the end, selling is best," and that SK Group is internally weighing the option of selling Solidigm.
According to the investment banking industry, Solidigm, which has recently been the subject of sale rumors, is a U.S. corporation SK hynix established in 2021 to acquire Intel's NAND flash business. It plans, designs and sells solid-state drives (SSDs) based on NAND flash.
SK hynix previously agreed in 2020 to acquire Intel's NAND and SSD business for about $9 billion and completed the transaction in two stages. The first stage took place in Dec. 2021. It acquired Intel's SSD business unit and the NAND manufacturing facility (fab) in Dalian, China, and launched the new company Solidigm in San Jose, California, to operate the business.
The second stage took place in the first half of this year. SK hynix paid Intel the remaining roughly $1.9 billion and finally acquired the remaining tangible and intangible assets, including intellectual property (IP) related to NAND flash wafer design and manufacturing, NAND flash wafer research and development (R&D) personnel, and Dalian fab personnel.
The question was where to place the entity responsible for production. Originally, SK hynix was known to have aimed to make Solidigm a company covering both production and sales and to list it in the United States. But as U.S. restrictions on China strengthened, placing the Chinese entity under Solidigm became difficult, and the production unit ended up under SK hynix's Chinese subsidiary (SK hynix Semiconductor Dalian).
An investment banking industry source said, "SK hynix worried until the end whether to place the production unit under Solidigm as originally planned or under Hynix."
In this context, Solidigm's initial IPO blueprint changed from the original plan. Last year there was talk that SK hynix would list Solidigm on the New York Stock Exchange, but there has been no word since.
An investment banking industry source said, "In its current state, Solidigm is limited to a sales-focused corporation without ownership of manufacturing, so it will inevitably be less attractive in an IPO," adding, "Ultimately, it is more likely in reality that Solidigm will be sold."
However, some say Solidigm, as a company specialized in SSD design, product planning and sales functions, could still pursue a Nasdaq listing. An industry source said, "Since this year's performance is expected to improve significantly from last year, if this trend continues for several quarters, there is enough of a listing story to make it happen."