Following multiple investments in the chip manufacturing sector, the USA includes chip packaging facilities from SK Hynix and Amkor under the CHIPS and Science Act.

In November 2023, Amkor announced plans to construct its first domestic outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) facility in Peoria, Arizona. The project is valued at US$2Bn, with the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) outlining up to US$400M in proposed direct funding and access to US$200M in proposed loans.

The new packaging facility complements several other semiconductor projects already underway in Arizona, such as those by TSMC, Intel, and Samsung. Together, these facilities will complete the OSAT production chain that the USA previously lacked. Until now, chips produced domestically were exported for packaging. However, with Amkor’s new facility, the USA aims to achieve a complete domestic production chain, from raw materials to finished chips.

Similarly, SK Hynix has secured a partnership with the US government to build a memory packaging facility in West Lafayette, Indiana. This partnership includes US$450M in direct funding and US$500M in loans. The facility is expected to begin operations in 2028, focusing on packaging next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM), specifically HBM4 and HBM4E. However, DRAM devices for these memory stacks will continue to be produced in South Korea.

The inclusion of these packaging facilities under the CHIPS and Science Act represents a significant effort to bolster the USA’s semiconductor value chain. Previously, the country’s capacity for packaging advanced chips was limited, but the new facilities from Amkor and SK Hynix will position the country competitively in high-end chip production.