SK Hynix Inc. held a ceremony celebrating the completion of an expanded fabrication plant (C2F) in Wuxi, China, on April 18th.

C2F is an expansion of the existing DRAM production line, C2, in Wuxi. The company decided to expand its production line in 2016 in order to solve the shortage of production space due to technology migration.

SK Hynix signed a contract with Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province, China, in 2004 to establish a local factory and completed the production line (C2) in 2006 to start producing DRAM. C2 is the company’s first 300mm FAB and has played a major role in SK Hynix's growth to date. The fab currently accounts for about 50 percent of SK Hynix's DRAM production. However, with technology scaling, the number of processes has increased and the equipment has become larger, which led to the shortage of the cleanroom space. SK Hynix, therefore, has invested a total of 950 billion KRW from June 2017 to April 2019 to secure additional production space.

C2F is a one-story FAB with a building area of ​​58,000m2, similar in size to the existing C2 FAB. SK Hynix has completed the construction of part of the cleanroom of C2F, installed equipment and started producing DRAM. The timing of additional cleanroom construction and equipment installation will be determined according to market conditions.

In February, SK hynix announced a plan to spend 120 trillion won to build a semiconductor cluster in Yongin, south of Seoul, to maintain its competitive edge in the global market.

Four semiconductor fabrication plants will be built at a site in Yongin, starting from 2022, which would make it the world's largest semiconductor cluster.