SK Hynix's $13B packaging facility promises more HBM for the AI bubble

Memory makers just can't churn out their DRAM fast enough. On the heels of an AI-driven shortage, SK Hynix on Tuesday announced a new 19 trillion Korean won (about $13 billion) advanced packaging and test facility in South Korea that could offer some relief - just not for consumer products like laptops and phones. The South Korean memory giant unveiled the new site, dubbed P&T7, which will be located at the Cheongju Technopolis Industrial Park in Chungbuk, South Korea. Work on the plant is expected to begin in April with completion targeted for the end of 2027. The site aims to address surging demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) modules used extensively in datacenter GPUs and AI accelerators. Between 2025 and 2030, SK expects HBM demand to grow by an average of 33 percent a year, fueled in no small part by extreme demand for AI infrastructure. HBM is manufactured by stacking multiple layers of DRAM - eight and 12 layers are most common - to achieve higher capacity and bandwidth while reducing energy consumption in the process. The process is incredibly expensive, as a single defect in any of the layers could render the final module worthless. Worse, because of HBM's prodigious data rates - as high as 2.75 TB/s per module in the latest generations - the chips usually need to be permanently co-packaged alongside the compute logic. This makes the margin incredibly tight. Defective modules could scrap a $50,000 GPU. Because of this, specialized packaging and test facilities, like SK's newly announced P&T7 site, are essential to producing HBM in volume. Development of the P&T7 facility comes as SK Hynix prepares to bring its M15X DRAM plant online. Announced in 2024, the 20 trillion won (about $13.5 billion) DRAM plant was built to address growing HBM demand. It opened its clean room in October and, according to SK, work to deploy fab equipment is progressing smoothly. While the new packaging site may be welcome news for the likes of AMD or Nvidia - two of the largest consumers of HBM memory - the packaging site will likely do little to address skyrocketing memory prices seen by consumers and businesses over the past few months. While HBM has appeared in consumer products in the past, its extreme cost and complexity usually preclude its use in modern client devices. DDR5 memory kits that, a year ago, sold for less than $100 are now going for well in excess of $300 as vendors grapple with the ongoing DRAM and NAND crunch. No fire sale for firewalls as memory shortages could push prices higher PC shipments set to hit the buffers as AI guzzles memory While you pay through the nose for memory, Samsung expects to triple its profits in Q4 SanDisk heals WD Black and Blues, rebrands beloved client SSDs As we previously reported, DRAM prices are expected to remain high for the next several years, driven in part by strong demand for AI infrastructure. Analysts predict DRAM prices to peak later this year before plateauing in 2027, and rising again in 2028. While customers pay through the nose, memory vendors are raking in billions of dollars of revenue. Last week, Samsung issued a revised Q4 forecast in which it predicted its operating profits would more than triple, while Micron and SK Hynix's profits are expected to more than double. ®