SK chairman in Taiwan to deepen ties with TSMC

Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, the parent of SK Hynix Inc., is visiting Taiwan amid the threat of escalating US tariff threats, suggesting the South Korean HBM giant will seek to deepen its ties with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) for a breakthrough.

According to Taiwanese media reports on Thursday, Chey and SK Hynix Chief Executive Kwak Noh-jung arrived in Taiwan on Wednesday for a closed meeting with TSMC officials. The two are also expected to visit other information technology companies in Taiwan, including ASUSTeK Computer Inc. and Wistron Corp.

Chey’s trip to the island state comes about six months before TSMC, the world’s largest foundry company, is set to produce SK Hynix's next-generation HBM chips.

The Taiwanese foundry will make logic dies for the Korean chip giant’s HBM, short for high-bandwidth memory. A logic die plays the role of the brain in HBM.

SK Hynix used proprietary technology to make base dies up to HBM3E, the fifth-generation DRAM memory, but plans to use TSMC’s advanced logic process for HBM4’s base die so additional functionality can be packed into limited space.

As Chey’s meeting with TSMC officials comes about two months after he met with Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang at CES in January, industry experts expect a deepening of the three companies' HBM alliance to win the AI chip race.

When Chey met TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei last June, the two chiefs agreed to reinforce their partnership in HBM chip development.

As SK chairman’s business trip to Taiwan also comes amid the intensifying global trade war triggered by US President Donald Trump’s tariff barrage, there is growing speculation that the Korean memory giant is seeking a buffer for shocks from hefty US tariffs on chip imports during his stay in Taiwan.

The country, home to major chip players such as Foxconn and Wistron, is one of the key global AI chip value chain centers.

UNRIVALED HBM LEADER

SK Hynix dominates the global HBM market, taking over 70% of global HBM sales in the January-March quarter.

It was the sole provider of 12-layer HBM3E chips, the most up-to-date HBM, to the world’s most valuable AI firm, Nvidia.

Recently, it also delivered samples of the latest generation HBM, the 12-layer HBM4 chip, to its key customers for the first time.

HBM4, the sixth-generation HBM, has emerged as a major battleground among HBM players as latecomers – Samsung Electronics Co. and Micron Technology Inc. – are going all-out to steal the show with their HBM4 chips.

Nvidia's next-generation AI chip, Rubin, is expected to feature HBM4.

Samsung Electronics, a laggard in the HBM market, has also agreed to partner with its foundry rival TSMC to jointly develop HBM4.

The once all-time global memory winner was elbowed out by SK Hynix – knocked down to the world’s second-largest memory chip producer by sales – in the first quarter of this year.

SK Hynix became No. 1 in the global memory market thanks to its dominance in the HBM market.

Write to Eui-Myung Park at uimyung@hankyung.com

Sookyung Seo edited this article.