SK Hynix's First Yongin Fab Starts in February. That Is the Whole Relief Schedule.

SK Hynix says it will spend $720bn building what it calls the largest network of memory factories in the world, and the first of four planned fabs at its Yongin Cluster is due to begin production in February ^[1][2]. That February date is the earliest disclosed point at which new Yongin capacity starts producing anything, which makes it the only firm marker hardware planners have for when the supply side begins answering the high-bandwidth memory boom ^[26].

The reason a fab schedule in Gyeonggi Province shows up in laptop bills of materials is mechanical. HBM is built by stacking ordinary DRAM, the same parts that go into phones and notebooks, so every stack consumed by an accelerator is DRAM that did not reach a consumer product ^[3]. The supply base is three companies: SK Hynix held 58% of the HBM market in the first quarter, with Samsung and Micron on 21% each, according to Counterpoint Research figures cited by CNBC ^[4]. Those three shares add to the entire market, which is why one construction timetable matters this much ^[5].

The building itself argues against speed. Korean terrain forces fabs upward, and this one will reach the height of a 50-storey apartment block with six cleanrooms stacked over several floors ^[6]. Set against the single-storey sprawl TSMC and Intel are putting up in Arizona, that is a lot more concrete per wafer ^[7]. SK Hynix is also expanding at Cheongju, including a NAND factory ^[8].

Meanwhile the price curve is flattening rather than turning. TrendForce expects conventional DRAM contract prices to rise 58% to 63% in the second quarter, then 13% to 18% for server DRAM in the third ^[9]. Both numbers are increases, and they cover different product scopes, so what is decelerating is the rate, not the level ^[10]. Buyers waiting for a reversal are reading the wrong series.

The capacity that does arrive is also increasingly pre-sold. SK Hynix reported 10 long-term supply agreements in July ^[11]. Micron had 16 at the end of June, and Samsung expects multi-year deals to eventually cover 60% to 70% of planned capacity ^[12][13]. Nvidia went furthest, securing HBM supply and agreeing to co-develop next-generation memory as part of a $500bn arrangement with SK Group that also covers new data centres with SK Telecom by 2027 ^[14]. SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won told CNBC that custom demand from Nvidia and Google means memory is "not just a commodity" ^[15]; he also showed a wafer carrying a handwritten note from Jensen Huang reading "Please make more" ^[16], said of demand that "it's like a war" ^[17], and conceded prices "went up too fast" ^[18]. Counterpoint's MS Hwang said every hotel near the Korean memory fabs is fully booked with Big Tech buyers ^[25].

Investors are unconvinced. SK Hynix and Samsung shares have fallen roughly 50% and 34% from June highs, Bloomberg reported, in a window when both posted record earnings ^[19]; the Nasdaq listing is down about 21% from a high of nearly $195 on 14 July ^[20]. SK Hynix has set a third-quarter timeline for shareholder returns ^[21].

Watch the February start and, more usefully, what SK Hynix says about the other three Yongin fabs ^[2][26]. Watch the Chongqing packaging plant, which the South China Morning Post reported is under review while the company says it is "looking into various solutions" for that business ^[22]; SK Hynix runs three fabs in China but cannot sell leading-edge HBM there under US export controls ^[23]. And watch CXMT, whose Shanghai debut valued it above every other Chinese-listed company ^[24].