Recently Reuters reported that SK Hynix, a major memory chip manufacturer in South Korea, may face difficulties in its plan to introduce EUV lithography machines in Wuxi, Jiangsu, because the United States opposes the introduction of advanced equipment such as EUV lithography machines into mainland China.

This issue has attracted considerable attention within SK Hynix before, so that CEO Li Xixi raised relevant concerns to American officials during his visit to Washington in July, but in the short term, the resistance is obviously not small.

Li Xixi said at an event on November 22 that the fourth generation DRAM chips (based on EUV) have been produced in South Korea since July. There is still a long way to go to apply the same technology in our Chinese factories, and we will respond to this matter wisely while cooperating with relevant parties.

Previously, SK Hynix announced that it would spend about 4.3 billion dollars to continue to purchase EUV lithography machines from Asme in the next five years. Its factory in South Korea has introduced EUV lithography technology, and it began to successfully mass produce EUV based 10nm fourth generation DRAM chips in July last year; EUV lithography machine planned to be introduced into Wuxi factory will also be used to produce 10nm DRAM chips.

It is reported that the DRAM memory chips produced by SK Hynix in its Wuxi factory account for about half of its output, accounting for 15% of the global total output. Therefore, the equipment upgrade is blocked or will have a significant impact on the market, which will also put SK Hynix at a disadvantage in the competition with Samsung and Micron.

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