Industrial

WEST LAFAYETTE, IND. — The U.S. Department of Commerce, which works with businesses and universities to promote job creation and economic growth, has agreed to a preliminary memorandum of terms (PMT) with semiconductor manufacturer SK hynix for its new $3.9 billion manufacturing plant in Indiana. The manufacturer, part of South Korean-based SK Group, announced in April that its advanced packaging and research-and-development (R&D) facility was coming to Purdue Research Park, an office and industrial research park adjacent to the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette. The PMT includes $450 million in direct funding under the CHIPS and Science Act and an additional loan of up to $500 million. The funding will contribute to SK hynix’s production of high-bandwidth-memory (HBM) semiconductors (or computer chips) for AI supply chain security technology in the United States. These new-generation HBM chips will be mass-produced and packaged onsite and will have more processing power than SK hynix’s current chips, which process 1.18 terabytes of data per second. “We are excited about the Department of Commerce’s support, through the CHIPS and Science Act, of the largest semiconductor production facility located at a university in the United States,” says Mung Chiang, president of Purdue University. “This …