According to semiconductor industry insiders, SK Hynix is considering acquiring MagnaChip's fab in Cheongju, South Korea. Cheongju City is an important production base for SK hynix, the acquisition of MagnaChip's Cheong Chau is aimed at increasing the capacity of its 200mm wafers.

MagnaChip's parent company, LG Semiconductor, was independent from SK Hynix's non-memory business unit in 2004, providing wafer foundry services from 0.8um to 0.11um for customers worldwide. MagnaChip has five fabs in Korea and the Cheongju Plant has a monthly capacity of 130,000.

In recent years, due to the slowdown in global memory chip market demand, SK Hynix has increased the development of logic chips such as mobile phone core processors, image sensors and automotive chips.

So far, SK hynix and MagnaChip have not commented on the news.