SK hynix has completed the acquisition of Intel's NAND division. SK hynix is expected to establish a specific NAND operational strategy to accelerate its corporations' solid-state drive (SSD) business.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure system on the 28th, SK hynix announced that "the transaction has concluded as the second closing payment and the transfer of business have been finalized."
Previously, SK hynix signed a contract to acquire Intel's NAND division in October 2020 to diversify its business structure, which had focused on DRAM. The total amount of the acquisition, divided into two phases ($6.61 billion for the first phase and $2.24 billion for the second), amounts to $8.844 billion, making it the largest scale in domestic mergers and acquisitions.
With the conclusion of the transaction, SK hynix has finalized the legal acquisition of NAND design assets (IP), research and development (R&D), and production facility personnel from Intel.
At the end of 2021, when the first phase of the acquisition was completed, SK hynix took over Intel's Dalian production plant in China along with its SSD business, and in December of the same year, the SSD division was newly launched as SK hynix's U.S. subsidiary 'Solidigm.'
SK hynix plans to establish and implement a specific strategy for its NAND business. Kwak Noh-jung, President of SK hynix, noted during a regular shareholders' meeting on the 27th regarding the 'operating plan for Intel's Chinese plant' that "the second closing will be completed within this month, and we plan to finalize the operational strategy." He added, "After fully acquiring those assets from Intel, there will be opportunities to complement the existing strategy further and discuss it."
He further explained, "The Chinese fab is a major production facility for the company and is also quite important in responding to global memory demand," adding, "We will prioritize customer response within the scope of U.S. government regulations and continue to operate the Chinese fab."
SK hynix's strategy is to proactively prepare next-generation products for AI data centers, such as enterprise SSDs that support high bandwidth and ultra-high capacity, as the demand for artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors continues this year. The enterprise SSD market is expected to grow 3.5 times compared to 2023.