Hynix moves forward with $100 million upgrade

MAY 8–EUGENE, Ore.–Hynix Semiconductor Manufacturing America (HSMA), the U.S. subsidiary of Hynix Semiconductor Inc., has reaffirmed its plans to invest $100 million to upgrade its DRAM wafer fab here.

Hynix has invested more than $1.6 billion in the Eugene plant, which has a 44,000 square-foot cleanroom.

According to Farhad Tabrizi, vice president of worldwide marketing for Hynix, the upgrade to Hynix’s 0.13-micron PrimeChip technology at the Eugene facility will result in a production increase of more than 50 percent. The fab currently produces 30,000 wafers per month of 256Mbit DDR DRAMs with 512Mbit sampling.

The upgrade comes just in time for Hynix, as the company faces possible 57 percent import duties from the U.S. Commerce Department and 33 percent duties from the European Commission. Hynix has said it plans to get around any final imposed duties by drop shipping outside of EU countries and relying on its Eugene fab.

“We expect the new HMSA product will primarily serve our U.S. customer base for use in high-end applications, especially in the server market,” Tabrizi said in a statement.

Unlike previous upgrades to the facility, production will continue at the site and the current 850 employees and operations will not be affected. In January of 2001, Hynix re-launched production after it had been closed for six months for upgrading of equipment.

Hynix originally announced the investment in March.

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