CHEONGJU, North Chungcheong Province -- The first wafers were loaded onto lithography equipment in the newest clean room of SK hynix’s M15 fabrication building in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, Thursday, to mark the kick-start of the world’s second-biggest NAND flash factory.

On 60,000 square meters of land, about the size of eight football stadiums, at the origin of the first metallic movable types 600 years ago, the M15 fabrication facility is expected to produce 100,000 additional wafers into NAND flash chips in the next four to five years. It is the second-largest facility after Samsung Electronics’ NAND fab in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.

SK hynix spent 20 trillion won ($17.7 billion) on the M15 fab as part of pre-emptive measures to respond to growing demand for cutting-edge NAND chips that are essential to running artificial intelligence platforms and devices, high-storage servers, massive data centers and autonomous driving solutions amid the “fourth industrial revolution.”

President Moon Jae-in and top government officials including Jang Ha-seong, Cheong Wa Dae’s chief policymaker, Kim Dong-yeon, deputy prime minister for economy and finance, Sung Yun-mo, minister for trade and industry, and Kim Sang-jo, chairman of the Fair Trade Commission, attended a ceremony to celebrate the plant’s completion, hosted by SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won. 

This was the fourth visit by the president to an industrial site after similar events to production facilities of Hyundai Motor, Hanwha and Samsung.

In his congratulatory speech, Moon highlighted SK hynix’s achievements of being the world’s No. 2 DRAM provider and fifth in NAND production.

“NAND flash, which can store an amount of data equivalent to 10 million books, is the core brain of big data,” the president said. “The construction of the newest Cheongju plant will give a competitive edge in the NAND flash market.”

The Cheongju plant will create 1,000 new jobs by the end of the year, and 2,100 in total by 2020, President Moon stressed. The direct employment will lead to another 3,000 new jobs for SK hynix’s contractors.

Operations of the new fab are estimated to create 2 trillion won in added value for the region’s economy each year by 2025, about 4 percent of the gross regional domestic product of North Chungcheong Province, according to a forecast from Chungbuk Research Institute. 

SK Chairman Chey expressed gratitude for the central and provincial governments’ support to grant timely approvals for the establishment of necessary infrastructure for the plant. After breaking ground in April 2017, the new fab was completed four months ahead of schedule. 

Chey also vowed to continue investing in the region and technological prowess.

“By achieving world-class technological innovation, SK hynix will contribute to solidifying Korea’s national competitiveness in the semiconductor industry in the fourth industrial era,” Chey said.

Economic and social ripple effects of the M15 fab are estimated to be equivalent to 218,000 new jobs, 70.9 trillion-won worth of production inducement effects and 25.8 trillion won in added value, according to Seoul National University’s Research Institute for Economics.

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