Samsung and SK Hynix plan massive new chip fabrication sites in South Korea to meet AI demand - Crypto Briefing

South Korea’s two leading semiconductor companies, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, are planning to build new chip fabrication sites in the country’s southwest Honam region to meet the surging demand... Read original →

Samsung and SK Hynix’s new fab cluster in Korea’s Honam region is a strategic response to the AI memory bottleneck. Technically, relocating advanced packaging there will accelerate local supply chain maturation and force convergence of HBM4/5 and chiplet interface standards. Government backing slashes permitting timelines and de-risks exposure to U.S.-EU export controls. Facing TSMC’s (Taiwan, China) dominance in CoWoS, Korean firms are betting on vertical integration of HBM and packaging—a move likely to pressure Micron and Intel to rethink outsourcing by 2025. Within 18 months, this hub could lift Korea’s share in AI backend manufacturing beyond 35%, while reshaping dependencies on Japanese photoresists and Taiwanese OSATs.