South Korea's Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) begins main construction this month on the priority zone of the Yongin Advanced System Semiconductor National Industrial Complex, bringing the number of Korean semiconductor fabs that have entered the infrastructure construction phase to 13 — and 17 when long-term planned capacity is counted.

The complex spans roughly 7.77 million square meters across Idong-eup and Namsa-eup in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. LH said it compressed a pre-construction timeline that normally takes seven to eight years down to three years and seven months. In June, the South Korean government designated three mega-projects and pulled the completion target forward from 2047 to 2040.

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

Seventeen front-end fabs, three near completion

Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) has announced 10 fabs: two at Pyeongtaek Plant 5 (P5), six at Yongin, and two in the Honam region. SK Hynix (000660.KS) is pursuing seven: four at Yongin, the Cheongju NAND fab M17, and two in Honam.

Three fabs are 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; P5 Phase 2 is in foundation work. SK Hynix's Yongin Y1 targets first cleanroom operation by February next year.

Ten more fabs are in site preparation or close to groundbreaking. 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 toward a 2033 completion target. Samsung's six Yongin fabs, with site preparation led by LH, aim to bring the first fab online in 2029.

The four Honam fabs — two each from Samsung and SK Hynix — remain long-term projects. Prerequisites are unresolved: relocating Gwangju military airport, remediating the existing site, and securing ultra-large-scale power and water. No groundbreaking timeline exists.

Capacity approaching today's global output

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 potential new capacity of up to 5.16 million wafers per month — exceeding the 4.1 million wafers per month of current global 300mm capacity tracked by SEMI. These are analyst and industry estimates, not confirmed company figures, and equipment move-in and cleanroom dates are company targets subject to change.

Overseas rivals are expanding in parallel with state support. Micron is pursuing up to 10 new fabs in Idaho and New York. China's CXMT and YMTC plan to more than double their production capacity.

Speed drives sequencing

LH aims to complete Zone 1 within roughly a year and hand the site to Samsung Electronics by 2028, enabling the first fab groundbreaking. The decision to start with Zone 1, west of Songjeoncheon Stream, is a matter of speed: Zone 2 contains farmland, forest, livestock facilities and 89 existing businesses, requiring longer negotiation. LH plans a "corporate relocation district" for those businesses before issuing procurement orders.

Utilities are being built in parallel. To supply more than 760,000 tons of industrial water per day, 310,000 tons will come from regional water systems and a new intake facility is planned upstream of Paldang Dam. Three on-site power plants will deliver more than 9GW with underground transmission lines. National Route 45 will be widened from four to eight lanes to connect with the Gyeongbu Expressway.

Yongin will house six fabs — matching Samsung's Pyeongtaek campus, the world's largest semiconductor production base, which 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 Pyeongtaek.

The compressed schedule is not friction-free. LH has acquired 43% of private land through negotiation and submitted 56% to the Land Expropriation Committee. In South Chungcheong Province, opposition has emerged over transmission lines crossing 14 cities and counties; Gwangju in Gyeonggi Province is demanding that industrial water pipelines be tied to long-term local development plans.

Market views on the buildout are split. Some analysts expect AI-driven demand to keep memory in shortage; others warn that new capacity concentrated between 2028 and 2030 could trigger oversupply and price declines.