SK Hynix’s plant in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province. (Yonhap)
SK Hynix is proceeding with the construction of a memory chip fab in the northeastern Japanese prefecture of Miyagi at a cost of tens of trillions of won, the Hankyoreh has learned. This will make the company the first Korean semiconductor manufacturer to make an investment of this major scale to build a production base in Japan.Yet as investment flows into Japan become more pronounced, US pressure on Korean companies to expand investment in America is intensifying, with such businesses expected to see calculations grow more complex in deciding investment destinations.The Hankyoreh’s investigation on Thursday found that SK Hynix is moving forward with the fab project in Miyagi, which is in the Tohoku region of Japan’s main island of Honshu. An industry insider who requested anonymity said that they were aware that SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won had “recently visited the area.”Miyagi is one of three major hubs, along with Kyushu and Hokkaido, that the Japanese government is developing into semiconductor centers.The investment is reportedly worth tens of trillions of won, or tens of billions of dollars. That is relatively modest compared with the hundreds of trillions of won allocated for the Yongin and Honam semiconductor clusters in Korea, suggesting this latest plan involves construction of a relatively small-scale plant in Japan.The Miyagi fab will serve as an additional overseas plant while SK Hynix proceeds with its original plan to build the two clusters in Korea, for which the company is planning new investments. This is considered a strategic move to expand output capacity through preemptive investment amid the persisting global shortage of memory chips.SK Hynix is set to become the third foreign company to open a semiconductor plant in Japan, following Micron of the US and TSMC of Taiwan. Samsung Electronics has a next-generation chip packaging research center in Japan’s No. 2 city of Yokohama.One risk factor, however, is that given US pressure on the Korean government and companies to invest in memory fabs in America, Washington’s demands for more chip production in the US could intensify if such investment in Japan comes to fruition. Other concerns are the Korean public’s wariness and political uncertainty over semiconductor investment in Japan, given that the sector is a strategic industry for Korea.By Bae Ji-hyun, staff reporter; Park Jong-o, staff reporterPlease direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
