Hynix Semiconductor’s officials said last week that the company intends to open 300mm pilot line in the fourth quarter this year. They also noted that the initial commercial production of products using 300mm wafers will start in the first quarter 2004, or in a year from now.

The first Hynix Semiconductor’s 300mm fab will utilise 0.1 micron process technology to manufacture 512Mbit DDR SDRAM chips. In the second quarter next year the company will begin to produce already 1Gbit DDR SDRAM memory products there. Farhad Tabrizi, Hynix vice president of worldwide marketing, also told the journalists that the company will sample its first 1Gbit chips in the third quarter 2003, while commercial production is set to start in the Q4 this year on 200mm wafers.

It will be really good for financial condition of Hynix to start making expensive 1Gbit memory products using 300mm wafers, though, it will only happen next year, while Hynix Semiconductors needs money just now, especially keeping in mind all the legal actions Infineon and Micron are taking against the Korean DRAM maker...