P&T7, an advanced packaging plant (fab) that SK hynix decided to build in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, has broken ground.
It is expected to proactively respond to the surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips while invigorating the regional economy overall.
SK hynix said on the 22nd that it held a groundbreaking ceremony for P&T7 at the Cheongju Technopolis industrial complex. About 190 people attended, including SK hynix executives, employees and their families, led by Executive Vice President Lee Byung-ki, head of mass production, as well as employees of the builder SK ecoplant.
P&T7, SK hynix's seventh package-and-test plant, is a dedicated fab for advanced packaging, the core of AI memory manufacturing such as High Bandwidth Memory (HBM).
If forming circuits on a wafer to implement memory cells and devices in the memory chip manufacturing process is the "front-end process," then packaging and testing fall under the "back-end process." This is the stage where completed chips are diced, packaged and verified to finish them as products for actual use.
As the importance of advanced packaging technology— which determines performance and power efficiency in AI memory manufacturing— has grown rapidly, SK hynix decided in January this year to build P&T7, an investment of about 19 trillion won.
P&T7 will cover about 230,000 square meters (70,000 pyeong) within Technopolis, with cleanroom space alone totaling about 150,000 square meters (46,000 pyeong). The goal is to complete facilities in sequence, starting with the wafer test (WT) line in Oct. next year and the wafer level packaging (WLP) line by Feb. 2028.
With this, SK hynix will secure three advanced packaging hubs: Icheon in the Seoul metropolitan area, Cheongju outside the metropolitan area, and the production base in West Lafayette, Indiana, in the United States, where initial construction work recently began.
In particular, with the construction of P&T7, the SK hynix Cheongju campus has completed an integrated semiconductor cluster system that spans production of NAND flash, HBM and DRAM, as well as advanced packaging.
Cheongju currently operates the M11, M12 and M15 fabs producing NAND and P&T3 handling back-end operations, and it also hosts M15X, which SK hynix decided to build with a total investment of 20 trillion won to secure next-generation DRAM production capacity including HBM in 2024.
M15X opened its first cleanroom in Oct. last year ahead of schedule and is said to have begun wafer input in Feb. It also opened a second cleanroom the same month and is expediting the establishment of a full-scale mass-production system by sequentially bringing in and installing equipment.
Above all, the company said the P&T7 investment is significant in terms of addressing national imbalances and promoting mutual growth with the region. SK hynix selected Cheongju as the final site to ease the industry's concentration in the metropolitan area and to promote balanced regional development.
During construction, up to 9,000 workers are expected to be deployed, which should energize the local economy. After completion, about 3,000 people will be stationed to operate P&T7. The cascading effects of activating a large-scale industrial complex—such as expanding living infrastructure and improving transportation networks—are expected to improve residential conditions for local residents.
The company also plans to expand a co-prosperity program for partner firms in the Cheongju area to cement a virtuous cycle that enhances the overall competitiveness of the regional industrial ecosystem.
Lee, the head of mass production, said, "P&T7 is a core production base that will complete SK hynix's AI memory leadership," adding, "We will complete a successful model that strengthens national industrial competitiveness and fosters mutual growth with the region."