Key points
- SK Hynix (SKHY) unit Solidigm eyes a first US memory plant
- One US state has emerged as the front-runner
- All of Solidigm's NAND comes from one China site
- The timing lands on top of a listing question
Solidigm, the US flash-memory company owned by SK Hynix (SKHY), is considering building its first NAND factory in the United States. Upstate New York has been mentioned as the leading location, according to reports Friday from Yonhap (연합뉴스) and Chosun Biz (조선비즈).
Nothing has been decided. SK Hynix said Solidigm is "reviewing various options to strengthen its business competitiveness, but no specific plans have been confirmed at this time." The company has not confirmed a site, investment amount or construction timetable.
Why a US plant, and why now
Solidigm makes NAND flash, the memory that stores data in phones, laptops, and the servers running AI. Every wafer the company produces today comes from a single fab in Dalian, China. One site means one point of failure.
The Dalian fab is also the awkward part of Solidigm's map. SK Hynix built the unit out of the NAND and SSD business SK Hynix agreed to buy from Intel (INTC) in 2020, with the Dalian fab changing hands at the end of 2021. A US factory would reduce Solidigm's reliance on that single site, and could help shield the business from potential US tariffs and from export controls on the chipmaking equipment shipped to China, the reports said.
The push also has a government behind it. The Trump administration has leaned on foreign chipmakers to move production onto US soil, the same pressure that sits under SK Hynix's other recent US moves.
The onshoring map is filling in
Solidigm would not be SK Hynix's first US bet. The parent company is already building a packaging plant at Purdue Research Park in Indiana, and this week another report placed SK Hynix in talks with Intel about US memory production in Ohio. A NAND fab in New York would be a third piece, and the most ambitious. Making the memory wafers themselves takes far more equipment than packaging finished chips, so a fab is a much larger commitment than the Indiana site.
The timing sits on top of the harder US labor story. American fabs are opening faster than the workers to run them, a shortage that Samsung (005930.KS) and Micron (MU) have both flagged. Any Solidigm plant would compete for the same short pool of memory technicians.
The listing question in the background
Solidigm has been the subject of reports about a possible separate Nasdaq listing. Korean coverage linked the factory discussion to that backdrop, but SK Hynix has not publicly connected a US NAND plant to any listing plan.
No agreement has been reached, and the reports name no construction date. The direction is clear. SK Hynix keeps looking at the United States, and the world's second-largest NAND maker may soon make its chips there, even as China's CXMT prepares to move into NAND.
