SK hynix Acquires 12 Trillion Won Worth of EUV Equipment from ASML

SK hynix to Purchase Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Lithography Equipment Costing Hundreds of Billions of Won Per Unit from the Netherlands’ ASML.

Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment of ASML. (Photo courtesy of ASML)

SK hynix has decided to make a large-scale purchase of 12 trillion won (approximately $8.1 billion) worth of Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment, essential for advanced semiconductor manufacturing, by the end of next year. This is a strategic move to expand its production capacity for AI memory (HBM) at its new semiconductor plants in Cheongju and Yongin.

SK hynix announced on March 24 that its board of directors decided to purchase EUV equipment worth 11.9497 trillion won from the Netherlands’ ASML. The equipment is scheduled to be delivered sequentially over approximately two years, until the end of next year.

EUV equipment is a key component for the ‘photo process,’ which involves etching fine circuit patterns onto semiconductor wafers. It uses short-wavelength light to draw detailed circuits like an ‘ultra-fine tweezer pen’. ASML is the exclusive producer of EUV equipment, which costs hundreds of billions of won per unit, earning it the nickname ‘super-supplier’ among semiconductor companies.

The value of this equipment purchase amounts to approximately 10% of SK hynix’s total assets. Under current disclosure regulations, KOSPI-listed companies with assets of 2 trillion won or more must publicly disclose new acquisitions of tangible assets if the acquisition value exceeds 2.5% of total assets. This is the first time in about five years that SK hynix has disclosed a large-scale purchase of EUV equipment from ASML, following a disclosure in February 2021 (for a purchase worth 4.8 trillion won).

A company official explained, “We secured the equipment to prepare for the mass production of next-generation memory processes.” However, the number of units purchased was kept confidential and not disclosed externally.

The EUV equipment being brought in is expected to be installed at the Cheongju semiconductor plant (M15X) in North Chungcheong Province, which is set to begin full-scale operations this year, and at the first fab (semiconductor plant) of the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster in Gyeonggi Province, where the cleanroom will open in February next year. These plants are slated to primarily produce High-Bandwidth Memory, which has seen a recent surge in demand from Big Tech companies.

In Feburary, the SK hynix board of directors also approved a plan to execute an additional 21.6 trillion won in new facility investment for the first Yongin fab by the end of 2030. Through this, the company intends to begin the construction of the remaining five cleanrooms, excluding the one opening next year.

Furthermore, it is anticipated that this equipment will accelerate the process transition to applying the ‘10-nanometer (nm, 1 nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter) class 6th generation (1c) process’ for SK hynix’s DRAM production. Earlier this month, SK hynix had announced that it had developed the world’s first 16-gigabit (Gb) Low-Power Double Data Rate 6 (LPDDR6), which applies the latest 6th generation micro-process with a circuit line width in the 10-nanometer class.

Kim Eun-jin