SK Hynix will complete its $9 billion takeover of Intel’s NAND memory business in the coming weeks, setting the seal on the stumbling US giant’s exit from the flash business.
The news emerged as US president Donald Trump pontificated on the fate of Intel, declaring that its CEOs post Andy Grove (who vacated the role in 1998) had lost direction and allowed Taiwan to “steal” the chip business from the US.
Korean outlets reported this weekend that SK Hynix was poised to hand over the last $2.24 billion of the $9 billion price tag set on the business in 2020. The deal includes the unit’s Dalian China NAND business, which became part of SK Hynix. The SSD division became a separate subsidiary dubbed Solidigm.
The first phase of the sale saw SK Hynix take over the Dalian factory and the SSD operation, but not all the relevant intellectual property. The conclusion of the deal was slated for some time after March 2025.
With the final part of the payment made, SK Hynix will gain full control of the manufacturing IP and R&D at the Dalian unit. The buy will leave SK Hynix in a much stronger position against industry giant Samsung.
Meanwhile, SK Hynix is exiting the image sensor market to concentrate on AI focused memory, according to reports over the weekend. It is a key supplier of high bandwidth memory to GPU giant Nvidia.
As for Intel, the conclusion of the divestment represents another stage in its ongoing shrinkage. When it comes to flash, Intel had already shuttered its Optane memory business that was designed to offer faster data access than traditional SSDs. Optane was also pitched as being cheaper than DRAM but with slower access speed.
With the world of politics and technology interwoven these days, Donald Trump last week took time out from cutting intel-sharing with Ukraine to lambast Intel’s leadership since the CEO-ship of co-founder Andy Grove.
In a White House press conference centered on a $100 billion TSMC investment in the US, Trump repeated his previous claims that Taiwan “stole” the chip industry from its pioneers in the US. But he didn’t blame Taiwan for this. Rather, he said, he fingered previous incumbents of the White House for allowing that to happen.
As for Intel, he said, the company had lost its way after the Grove era. Trump described Grove, whose autobiography was titled “Only the Paranoid Survive” as a “tough smart guy” adding “I used to read about him when I was a young man.”
“He did an incredible job, he really dominated the chip businesses, and then he died and I guess they had a series of people that didn’t know what the hell they were doing and we gradually lost the chip business and now it’s almost exclusively in Taiwan.”
TSMC has pledged to build five plants in Arizona. There will be no government funding involved, and Trump took the opportunity to disparage predecessor Joe Biden’s plans to boost US chip manufacturing through subsidies. Trump claimed TSMC’s decision was a result of its fears over his plans to impose tariffs on pretty much everyone.
