SK hynix has completed its first fabrication line equipped with extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment for DRAM chips, the company said Monday.

Named M16, the fab on its Icheon campus in Gyeonggi Province is the company’s largest.

It has a building area of 57,000 square meters, equivalent to the size of eight soccer fields combined, and is 105 meters high, reaching the height of a 37-floor apartment building.

SK hynix has injected 3.5 trillion won ($3.1 billion) and 3.34 million workers for its 25-month construction work.

The chipmaker said it held a contactless ceremony to mark the completion, attended by SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, SK Group Senior Vice Chairman Chey Jae-won, SK SUPEX Council Chairman Cho Dae-sik, SK hynix Vice Chairman Park Jung-ho, SK Holdings President & CEO Jang Dong-hyun, SK hynix CEO Lee Seok-hee, and SK hynix Lead Independent Director Ha Yung-ku.

“We began building M16 two years ago, when the chip market outlook was not that bright. Now as we celebrate its completion, we hear about a chip supercycle. A decision made in a difficult time has helped us dream big,” Chey said.

SK hynix introduced the EUV lithography equipment for the first time for M16.

Using the cutting-edge equipment, the chipmaker plans to start producing the fourth-generation of 10-nanometer DRAM products, known as 1a-nm DRAM, from the second half of this year.

“M16 is a complex manufacturing plant where cutting-edge infrastructures such as dedicated space for EUV equipment and advanced pollution reduction facilities are concentrated,” said SK hynix CEO Lee Seok-hee. “It will become a production plant of a higher level that contributes to the ESG management as well as creating economic value.”

In 2015, after completing its flagship M14 plant, SK hynix pledged to build two more plants within 10 years.

The first of the two envisioned projects -- M15 in Cheognju, North Chungcheong Province -- was completed in 2018. With M16 completed this year, the company has achieved that goal three years earlier than planned, a company official said.

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)