South Korea’s Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) will commence main construction this month on the priority zone of the Yongin Advanced System Semiconductor National Industrial Complex. With this groundbreaking, the number of semiconductor fabs in South Korea that have entered the infrastructure construction phase has risen to 13. Including long-term planned capacity, the total reaches 17.

The industrial complex, spanning approximately 7.77 million square meters across Idong-eup and Namsa-eup in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, is a large-scale national project purpose-built for semiconductors. LH said it compressed the pre-construction timeline—which typically takes seven to eight years—to three years and seven months. In June, the South Korean government announced three mega-projects and moved up the completion target from the original 2047 to 2040, seven years earlier.

Lee Seong-hoon, president of LH, said at the Yongin site on the 30th of last month: “As the executor and responsible party for the national industrial complex, we will concentrate company-wide capabilities on accelerating the project.”

17 New Front-End Memory Fabs in South Korea

According to industry sources, South Korea’s new front-end memory fabs total up to 17. Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) has announced plans to build 10 fabs: two at Pyeongtaek Plant 5 (P5), six at the Yongin complex, and two in South Korea’s Honam region. SK Hynix (000660.KS) is pursuing seven: four at the Yongin cluster, the Cheongju NAND fab M17, and two in the Honam region.

By stage of progress, three fabs are currently under construction or nearing equipment installation. Samsung’s P5 Phase 1 is reviewing equipment move-in for Q2 next year, ahead of the original schedule, while P5 Phase 2 is undergoing foundation work. SK Hynix’s Yongin Y1 targets first cleanroom operation by February next year.

Ten fabs have entered site preparation or are about to break ground. SK Hynix’s Yongin Y2 and Cheongju M17 target first cleanroom operation by June 2029 and December 2028, respectively. Yongin Y3 and Y4 will break ground sequentially with a 2033 completion target. Samsung’s six fabs at the Yongin complex have begun site preparation led by LH, with the first fab targeting operation in 2029.

The four Honam-region fabs—two each from Samsung and SK Hynix—are long-term projects. With unresolved prerequisites including the actual relocation of Gwangju military airport, remediation of the existing site, and securing ultra-large-scale power and water infrastructure, no definitive groundbreaking timeline has been set.

New Capacity Expected to Approach Total Global Output

Once all 17 new fabs are operational, South Korea’s production capacity is expected to surge. Industry estimates put Samsung’s P5 (Phases 1 and 2) alone at 600,000 wafers per month, and SK Hynix’s Y1 at 360,000 wafers per month. Applying an average of 200,000 to 300,000 wafers per month to the remaining 14 fabs yields new production capacity of up to 5.16 million wafers per month.

That exceeds this year’s global 300mm wafer production capacity of 4.1 million wafers per month, as tracked by SEMI.

CategoryNumber of FabsTarget TimelineSamsung P5 Phase 11Q2 2027 equipment move-in under reviewSK Hynix Yongin Y11February 2027 cleanroom operationSK Hynix Cheongju M171December 2028 cleanroom operationSamsung Yongin Fab 112029 operation targetSK Hynix Yongin Y21June 2029 cleanroom operationSK Hynix Yongin Y3·Y422033 completion targetHonam region (Samsung 2, SK 2)4Undetermined

Note: Equipment move-in and cleanroom operation dates are company targets and subject to change.

Overseas competitors are also accelerating expansion backed by government subsidies. U.S.-based Micron is pursuing up to 10 new fabs in Idaho and New York. Chinese memory makers CXMT and YMTC also plan to more than double their production capacity.

Yongin Complex: The Front Line of the Speed Race

LH aims to complete Zone 1 within roughly one year and hand over the site to Samsung Electronics by 2028, enabling groundbreaking on the first fab. The decision to begin construction with Zone 1—located to the left of Songjeoncheon Stream—is driven by speed. Zone 2 contains farmland, forest land, livestock facilities, and 89 existing businesses, requiring more time for negotiation and site preparation.

For Zone 2, LH said it will create a “corporate relocation district” to move existing businesses as part of a coexistence plan before issuing procurement orders.

Power and industrial water infrastructure needed to operate large-scale semiconductor production facilities is being built in parallel. To supply more than 760,000 tons of water per day, 310,000 tons will be drawn from regional water supply systems, with plans to build a new intake facility upstream of Paldang Dam. For power, three on-site power plants will be built to supply more than 9GW, with undergrounding of transmission lines. National Route 45, currently a four-lane road, will be expanded to eight lanes to connect with the Gyeongbu Expressway and other arteries.

The Yongin complex will house six fabs—the same number as Samsung’s Pyeongtaek campus, known as the world’s largest semiconductor production base. The Pyeongtaek campus currently operates four fabs and is building P5-1 and P5-2. If all six Yongin fabs are built as triple-stack structures, memory output could surpass the Pyeongtaek campus.

Divided Market Views

Market assessments of the quantitative expansion are split. Some expect memory shortages to persist for the time being due to AI industry growth, while others warn that the concentration of new production capacity coming online between 2028 and 2030 could lead to oversupply and price declines.

The memory industry’s large-scale expansion is proceeding at unprecedented speed. With the government moving up the completion target by seven years, LH has processed permits, compensation, design, and procurement in parallel. On land compensation, 43% of total private land area has been acquired through negotiation, while 56% has been submitted to the Land Expropriation Committee for expropriation rulings.

However, friction from the accelerated timeline remains. In South Chungcheong Province, opposition has emerged over transmission lines that will pass through 14 cities and counties due to the Yongin complex. In Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, demands have been raised that industrial water pipelines passing through the area be linked to long-term development plans for industry, transportation, and housing.