SK Hynix to set up US NAND firm led by Intel’s senior vice president

SK Hynix that took over Intel Corp.’s NAND memory chip business plans to set up a new company in the United States. Intel’s senior vice president and general manager Robert Crooke will lead the company as SK Hynix tries to keep Intel’s existing engineers within the firm.

Crooke, who is responsible for Intel’s NAND products, said the new company will hire more than 150 employees in the globe.

“We will stand up a new global company, headquartered in the US, and owned by SK Hynix. I am honored to be the CEO of this company. Stay tuned for our new company name, I’ll share it here!” Crooke wrote in his LinkedIn.

He posted job ads to seek new employees for operations not only in California but also in China, Taiwan, Poland and the United Kingdom.

Crooke, who received his bachelor’s degree in computer systems engineering from the University of Massachusetts, joined Intel in 1989 as a field applications engineer. He is currently leading its Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) Solution Group.

Last October, SK Hynix agreed to buy Intel's NAND memory and storage business for $9 billion, which will propel the South Korean chipmaker to second place in the sector’s global rankings.

His appointment is expected to ease concerns among the unit’s employees over their futures after the acquisition such as job security, the industry sources said. They will keep doing existing works under the same boss in a company with a different name.

“We know that securing a core workforce is a key to success of the acquisition. There will be no unreasonable merger between the two companies,” a SK Hynix official said during a conference call on the third-quarter earnings last year. “There is also a contract clause to prevent losing Intel’s manpower.”

The acquisition is under review by antitrust regulators in the world. Among major eight antimonopoly authorities, seven bodies including ones in the US and South Korea approved the deal, except China.

SK Hynix plans to set up a new company in China also once the country’s review is cleared. The new entity is likely to be based in Dalian where Intel is operating a NAND memory manufacturing facility, according to the industry sources.

Write to Su-Bin Lee at lsb@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.