Solus Advanced Materials said on Monday that it has received approval for its thin foils from memory chip giant SK Hynix.It will be the first case that a domestic copper foil company supplies such a product to SK Hynix.The thin foils, which are ultra-thin at 2 micrometers, are aimed at use in a modi

South Korean semiconductor materials firms are expected to see their supply decline for the remainder of the year as memory chip makers reduce their NAND production output.Some companies have reduced as much as over 50% of their material supply for NAND production compared to last year, sources said

Thermal compression (TC) bonders are in high demand from the launch of high bandwidth memory (Hbm) and 3D packaging by chipmakers.Accordingly, chipmakers are diversifying their suppliers. Samsung is procuring them from Toray, Shinkawa, and its own subsidiary Semes, sources said.Meanwhile, SK Hynix i

Samsung Electronics has given exclusive licensing rights of its 96 patents related to semiconductors to one of its IP subsidiaries, a move that could indicate that the tech giant may use patent lawsuits to protect its business interests in the sector.The company gave the rights over the 96 US patent

SK Hynix said on Monday that it has given a sample of its HBM3E to a customer.High bandwidth memory connects DRAM vertically to increase their speed and is currently in high demand from AI applications.HBM3E is an expansion of HBM3 with a further increased speed of 1.15TB per second.The South Korean

South Korean 8-inch chip foundries, just like their Taiwanese counterparts TSMC and Vanguard International Semiconductor, have lowered their service prices this year from low demand from the IT sector, TheElec has learned.Their transition to 12-inch foundries has also impacted their drop in service

Fab equipment maker DIT has begun supplying laser annealing equipment to chip giant SK Hynix, TheElec has learned.Annealing equipment is used to repair wafers that are damaged after ion injection.During the ion injection process, Group 3 or Group 5 dopants such as B, I or As are injected into the wa

SK Hynix has unveiled a 321-layer NAND flash at a conference in the US.The South Korean chip giant unveiled the 321-layer 1Tb triple-level cell NAND flash at Flash Summit 2023 in Santa Clara on Tuesday.SK Hynix is the first memory chip maker to unveil a NAND with over 300 layers.The company said its

Competition in the advanced die bonder market is intensifying. Besi, ASMPT, and Hanmi Semiconductor have all announced expansion plans in the thermal compression (TC) bonder sector.TC bonders are used to bond individual chips on processed wafers. They started to become in high demand with the launch

Even in high bandwidth memory (HBM) hybrid bonding may be needed to pack in more layers within the confines of the package.This is according to SK Hynix Wafer Bonding Head Kang Ji-ho, who said during a local chip conference hosted by TheElec that HBM with 12-layer or higher can face problems in heig

SK Hynix said on Wednesday that it has recorded 2.9 trillion won in operating loss in the second quarter this year.This means that the South Korean chip giant recorded 6.3 trillion won in operating loss in total for the first half of the year, as the down cycle of the global chip market continues.Ho

Fab equipment maker Wonik IPS was using multiple securities firms to purchase the shares of competitor APTC, TheElec has learned.Wonik IPS started buying listed shares of APTC in May and the move is ongoing, sources said.It is unknown how many shares Wonik IPS purchased in total for the past two mon

Nvidia was working to diversify its sourcing of HBM3 and 2.5D packages used in AI GPUs for data centers, TheElec has learned.The US chip giant was negotiating deals with potential suppliers, which includes Samsung, sources said.Currently, Nvidia, for its A100, H100, and other AI GPUs, uses TSMC for

Managing the power efficiency of data centers is a large issue in the chip industry as trends such as AI and self-driving cars are causing exponential increases in the amount of data.Because of this, the amount of data formed in the past two years equaled that of around 90% of the data made througho

China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies and other DRAM companies in Greater China are expected to see exponential growth in the coming years despite US sanctions against China, a South Korean professor said.This growth will be substantial enough to threaten the three-way dominance of the DRAM industry

SK Hynix said on Tuesday that it has started verification of its latest Gen 5 (1b) 10-nanometer (nm) server DDR5 DRAM with Intel.Once approved, the new memory chip will be paired with Intel’s Xeon Scalable Platform server processors.SK Hynix said its latest DDR5 DRAM has a speed of 6.4Gbps and claim

Samsung has formed a team to develop a 4F2(feature square) DRAM, TheElec has learned.If the tech giant succeeds, it will be able to reduce the surface of die by 30% compared to 6F2 DRAM, sources said.Memory chipmakers attempted to commercialize 4F2 ten years ago but failed at the time.But now Samsun

Tokyo Electron is expected to install the demo version of its new hybrid oxide etcher at a place designated by Samsung Electronics’ chip research group, Semiconductor Research & Development, TheElec has learned.The fab equipment maker’s new product is called hybrid because it uses the traditional RF

SK Hynix has become the first memory chipmaker to claim that the market has hit bottom during the first quarter.The memory chipmaker on Wednesday reported 3.4 trillion won in operating loss.But the South Korean chipmaker said the company is expecting a rebound after the second quarter.Analysts and s

The chip industry is looking for alternative materials to coolants since major producer 3M’s announcement of halting production.Coolants are used in the etching process in chip production to prevent overheating.Samsung and SK Hynix relied on 3M for the material as it accounted for 90% of the product