SK Hynix Sets Up R&D Center in Taiwan

SK Hynix has established a research and development centre, ‘SK Hynix Flash Solutions Taiwan Ltd.’. The company aims to strengthen its global R&D competence and customer support by adding this centre to its other facilities.

The Taiwan R&D centre will focus on intensifying SK Hynix's competence in the development of NAND Flash memory products. Located in Hsinchu, the hub of Taiwan's IT industry, the facility is expected to become a base of the technology support for the company's Chinese and Taiwanese clients.

Recently, there has been an increasing demand for higher value added NAND solutions equipped with controllers as demands for high end mobile devices and servers including the cloud increase. Hence, the role of controllers has become more important to efficiently interface central processing units with NAND Flash.

In June 2012, SK Hynix acquired LAMD in the U.S. to strengthen its competitiveness in the controller market and established ‘SK Hynix memory solutions Inc.’. The firm has been shipping SSDs equipped with in-house controllers since the 3rd quarter of this year.

“The R&D centre is situated in Taiwan where many of the major chip clients and manufacturers are located as excellent human resources are available,” says senior vice president Gi Hyun Bae, the Head of Solution Development Division of SK Hynix. “With this opportunity, the company has reinforced its basis for the future technology cooperation while securing the pool of superior human resources,” he adds.

SK Hynix Inc., headquartered in Korea, is a semiconductor supplier offering Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chips Flash memory chips (NAND Flash) and CMOS Image Sensors for a wide range of customers.

NXP to Upgrade of its Singapore Facilities

NXP Semiconductors, which sees Singapore as an important pivot for its global business, will invest $145 million here to upgrade facilities. The Eindhoven, Netherlands-based semiconductor giant will invest $125 million to upgrade its Systems on Silicon Manufacturing Company's (SSMC) wafer fab facilities in Singapore. SSMC is a joint venture between NXP and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). This investment will help SSMC to scale up to work on cutting-edge manufacturing processes.

NXP is also boosting the capabilities of its research and development (R&D) lab in Singapore by pumping in $20 million to support the lab's increase in headcount from 50 to 80, and expand its research in sensor-related projects, said Loh Kin Wah, executive vice-president, sales and marketing, NXP.

The total of $145 million in new investment adds to the $40 million that NXP has already invested in the R&D lab as well as in SSMC over the past five years.

The upgrading of SSMC not only enhances NXP's global competitiveness but also strengthens Singapore's semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem, supporting the continued growth of the industry here, said Leo Yip, chairman of the Singapore Economic Development Board.

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