How to Trade SK Hynix (SKHX)

Chung Ju-yung founded Hyundai Electronics Industries in Icheon, 80km from Seoul, to expand from automotive and shipbuilding into semiconductors. In 1984, it produced Korea's first 16Kb SRAM, followed by its first commercial DRAM in 1985.

Hyundai Electronics acquired LG Semiconductor in 1999 to consolidate Korea's memory industry following the Asian Financial Crisis. However, the debt accumulated from the acquisition nearly led to bankruptcy in 2001, with a loss of ₩5 trillion in a single year.

Creditors took control of Hyundai Electronics, which was renamed Hynix Semiconductor in 2001. Called a 'comeback darling' by the NYT, the company survived against all odds. SK Telecom acquired Hynix in 2012 for $3B, rebranding it as SK Hynix within the SK Group conglomerate.

SK Hynix produced the world's first High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) in 2013 after investing in TSV (through-silicon via) technology since 2009. While competitors viewed the risk as too high for the then-immature HPC sector, it became one of the best bets in semiconductor history.

SK Hynix became the primary supplier of HBM3E for NVIDIA's H100/H200 GPUs, making the AI revolution possible. Controlling over 53% of the global HBM market, it reached all-time high quarterly earnings in Q4 2024. In March 2026, SK Hynix filed with the SEC to list on the NYSE.