SK hynix orders new equipment worth $28.7 mil. for next-gen HBM4

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, left, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang participate in a press briefing held at SK Group's headquarters in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap

SK hynix has ordered new high-bandwidth memory (HBM) production equipment from Hanmi Semiconductor in a deal worth 44.2 billion won ($28.7 million), a regulatory filing showed Monday, in a possible bid to expand production of HBM4 products for U.S. chip giant Nvidia.

Hanmi Semiconductor said in a regulatory filing it has won the deal to supply thermo-compression (TC) bonders to SK hynix through early September.

A TC bonder, considered core equipment in HBM production, is used to stack multiple dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips to produce HBM.

With a single TC bonder typically priced at around 3 billion won, industry watchers said the agreement likely covers 15 units.

Hanmi Semiconductor said it will supply the TC Bonder 4.5 Griffin, an upgraded version of the TC Bonder 4.0 announced in May last year, which is presumed to have been optimized for SK hynix's needs.

Industry watchers said the equipment will be sent to the new M15X fab in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province.

SK hynix, meanwhile, began mass production of HBM4 products in September last year, which will be installed in Nvidia's Vera Rubin artificial intelligence platform.

Earlier in the day, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said his company is making all-out efforts to ensure a stable supply of chips to Nvidia.

"Most of our cooperation so far has centered on memory, but from now on, we will elevate our partnership to a higher level," Chey said.