Hynix set to close its Oregon plant, cutting 1,100 jobs
It may have once talked about toppling both Intel and AMD within a decade, but South Korea's Hynix looks to have been knocked back on its heels a bit amid a general downturn in the DRAM market, and it's now taken the rather drastic step of closing down its plan in Eugene, Oregon, eliminating some 1,100 jobs in the process. As EE Times points out, that move is at least partly due to the fact that 300mm plants are ramping up faster than expected, making 200mm plans like the one in Oregon far less cost effective to operate and, apparently, too expensive to upgrade. There's also the little matter of some tariffs the United States had imposed on Hynix, which it was able to avoid thanks to its plant in Oregon, but which now appear to be set to expire. For its part, Hynix denies that has anything to do with the plant closing, and it adds that it is still looking at ways to "have a presence" in Eugene.
[Via The Wall Street Journal]
