SK hynix Q1 2026: Record 52.6 Trillion Won Revenue, 72% Operating Margin, M15X Fab Accelerates HBM Capex

By NineScrolls Team · 2026-04-24 · 4 min read · Industry

Headline Numbers

SK hynix reported first-quarter 2026 results on April 23, posting 52.5763 trillion won in revenue, 37.6103 trillion won in operating profit, and 40.3459 trillion won in net profit. Operating margin hit a record 72%; net margin 77%. It is the first time the company has ever crossed 50 trillion won of quarterly revenue.

Revenue rose roughly 60% quarter-over-quarter and 198% year-over-year. Operating profit climbed about 96% QoQ and more than five-fold YoY. The results beat consensus and extended an AI-memory surge that began in 2024.

HBM Demand Exceeds Three Years of Capacity

On the earnings call, SK hynix said customer requests for high-bandwidth memory already exceed its planned production capacity for the next three years. The company plans to begin sampling its seventh-generation HBM4E in the second half of 2026, with mass production targeted for 2027.

High-value products — HBM, high-capacity server DRAM modules, and enterprise SSDs — drove the quarter. Management cited expanded AI infrastructure investment as the offset to the usual Q1 seasonal softness in memory.

M15X Cheongju Fab and Yongin Cluster

SK hynix recently broke ground on the M15X fab in Cheongju, a 19 trillion won project dedicated to advanced DRAM and HBM output. Q1 2026 investment was weighted toward ramping M15X and preparing infrastructure for the Yongin semiconductor cluster, alongside securing key equipment such as EUV scanners.

The message to the supply chain: 2026 capital spending will rise meaningfully above the 30.2 trillion won deployed in 2025, aimed squarely at AI-memory nodes and the advanced packaging needed to produce HBM4-class stacks.

Capex Direction: EUV, Infrastructure, Ramp

The company told analysts its 2026 investment scale will increase significantly versus 2025, with three priorities: ramp-up of M15X, Yongin infrastructure preparation, and securing advanced equipment including EUV lithography tools from ASML. That aligns with SK hynix's earlier disclosures about multi-billion-dollar EUV commitments for its 1c DRAM and HBM programs.

Capex is feeding directly into wafer fab equipment orders — etchers, deposition systems, cleaners, metrology, and TSV tooling — because HBM production requires far more process steps per wafer than commodity DRAM.

Context: Above Nvidia and TSMC on Margin

At 72%, SK hynix's Q1 operating margin is higher than the most recent reported operating margins at both Nvidia and TSMC, underscoring how severe the HBM pricing environment has become. The Korea Times reported operating profit of $25.42 billion for the quarter, and Seoul Economic Daily described the result as the first-ever quarter above 50 trillion won in revenue for the company.

Shares moved lower on the day despite the beat — investors had already priced in much of the AI memory upside and are focused on how quickly capacity can be brought online, which is fundamentally a capital-equipment question.

What This Means for Plasma Processing and Thin Film Deposition

Plasma processing equipment (etch, PECVD, plasma activation): HBM production is an etch-intensive workload. Each HBM4 stack is built on base-die and core-die DRAMs that themselves require high-aspect-ratio dielectric etch for capacitor trenches and contact holes, followed by deep TSV reactive-ion etch for stack interconnect. A three-year backlog at SK hynix translates directly into sustained demand for plasma etch chambers, PECVD dielectric deposition, and plasma activation steps for hybrid bonding surface preparation.

Thin film deposition systems (ALD, CVD, PVD, sputtering): Advanced DRAM and HBM core dies are the industry's most ALD-hungry products — high-k dielectrics for capacitors, metal-gate barriers, and conformal liners inside TSVs all rely on atomic layer deposition. Expect additional tool orders from Lam Research (ALTUS family, Kiyo etch), Applied Materials (Endura PVD, Producer CVD/ALD), Tokyo Electron (Trias/Triase+), and ASM International as SK hynix fits out M15X. PVD sputtering of copper seed and barrier metals for TSVs scales linearly with HBM stack count.

Equipment supply chain (plasma sources, targets, vacuum components, gas delivery, process monitoring): An HBM-weighted fab has heavier wafer-fab-equipment content per wafer than a logic fab at the same node — more chambers, more gas delivery modules, more vacuum pumps per line. Plasma source makers, sputter target suppliers, mass-flow controller vendors, and optical emission / endpoint-detection subsystem suppliers all benefit from capacity plans that already have customer orders three years out. Yttrium-coated chamber parts, quartz consumables, and high-purity precursor supply will remain tight as long as HBM ramps are this steep.