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| A semiconductor "clean room" is seen in this file photo, Friday. Korea Times file |
By Kim Yoo-chul
A senior executive at SK hynix, the world's second-largest memory chipmaker, said Friday the firm was hoping to see a major turnaround of its relatively sluggish NAND flash memory chip business this year, based on expectations the anti-trust regulators will approve SK hynix's acquisition of Intel's chip business for a whopping $9 billion.
"It's true SK was struggling last year because the company was late in advancing its NAND flash memory chip business and shifting toward three-dimensional (3D) NAND wafer technology. Once we receive approval from anti-trust regulators over the company's 2020 proposed acquisition of Intel's memory chip business, then we can improve profitability of the company's NAND business," Noh Jong-won, finance chief of SK hynix, told investors on a conference call Friday.
Unlike its strengths in the DRAM-type memory chip business, where it is second to market leader Samsung, its position in the NAND flash business segment isn't that substantial. Right after SK's announcement of its intention to buy the Intel business, some analysts expressed hopes that the move would be approved and help SK take a larger market share. The acquisition is calling for SK to buy most of Intel's memory business, including related manufacturing operations in Dalian, China and solid state-drive (SSD) operations.
"The acquisition of Intel's memory business is truly positive for SK in terms of securing an experienced human resources pool and diversifying the company's business portfolio, as well as for realizing an economy of scale in NANDs," said the company's chief financial officer.
What SK is possibly aiming for is that, with a possible easing of the current NAND oversupply, as well as fewer suppliers competing for the same (big corporate) customers, the company could be looking at a good return on its Intel acquisition.
Mentioning its advancements in technology competitiveness so as to handle much thinner 128-layer NANDs, the executive said that SK will focus on cutting costs, so as to help to mass-produce such advanced chips.
3D NAND is replaces today's planer NAND flash memory. It is widely being used for applications such as corporate servers, the demand of which will remain tight amid the emerging contactless trend, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In terms of technology, a 3D NAND is quantified by the number of layers stacked. As more layers are included, the bit density increases. Leader Samsung and SK are racing to develop and ship the next iteration 128-layer products, beyond the previous 64-layer and 96-layer products.
"At SK we will try hard to turn around our NAND chip business within the year. The key task is how to write SK's success story in NAND as we did in DRAM chips," said the executive, adding that it expects to see solid NAND demand as the firm's major corporate clients plan to adopt more graphic processor unit (GPU) chips throughout this year. Bit growth of the NAND business is expected to rise as much as 30 percent.
Regarding the outlook of the current quarter, the executive remained positive. "We can say that guidance during the current quarter is looking good, as the inventory adjustment from server customers is about to come to an end."
SK, which invested some 10 trillion won last year, plans to maintain a quiet "conservative" stance in memory investment this year. It added that its new memory chip plant, the world's largest fab in terms of scale, dubbed the "M16," will be operational from June of this year.
For a comparison, Samsung Electronics didn't give any numerical guidance on its total capital expenditures this year. However, its top management's comments on "significant increases" in spending for memory and foundry may lead to more worries about uncertainty on the supply side, especially NAND.
Plus, the company said it will move more wafer-making facilities from its home-turf to China as soon as possible to better respond to rising customer demand and to cut costs.
"Because of heavy investments needed to manufacture 12-inch wafers, we are seeing a limited supply of those 300-millimeter wafers. The market trend is in an increasing demand of 8-inch foundry wafers. As the trend will continue for a while, we are on track to transfer some 8-inch fabs to China," said the finance chief.
SK hynix reported 31.9 trillion won in revenue last year, with the operating profit coming in at 5 trillion won, up 18.2 percent and 84.3 percent, year-on-year, respectively.
