By Kwanwoo Jun


Shares of South Korean semiconductor-related companies, viewed as beneficiaries of the boom in artificial intelligence, rallied Monday in line with their Japanese peers.

Shares of memory-chip maker SK Hynix and chip-packaging equipment supplier Hanmi Semiconductor rose as much as 7.6% to 168,100 won ($126.21) and 20% to 101,500 won, respectively, outperforming the stock benchmark Kospi's 1.3% gain in late trade.

The rally mirrored the surge in Japanese chip stocks--such as semiconductor-equipment suppliers, Advantest and Lasertec, as well as chip maker Renesas Electronics--that helped pull the Nikkei Stock Average above 40000 for the first time ever.

SK Hynix and Hanmi Semiconductor have recently drawn keen attention from investors because both have teamed up to package high bandwidth memory chips for clients to power AI applications, KB Securities analyst Juyoung Park said in a research note.

Brisk demand for HBM chips has led the global chip-industry recovery recently.

Global chip makers such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology are now gearing up to mass-produce HBM3E chips, the most advanced model, fuelling more market interest in likely beneficiaries of the ongoing AI boom, Park said.

Hanmi Semiconductor supplies SK Hynix with thermal-compression bonders, designed to bond and stack multiple chips, and SK Hynix supplies advanced HBM products to U.S. chip maker Nvidia, whose market capitalization has topped $2 trillion on rapid AI-driven growth.


Write to Kwanwoo Jun at kwanwoo.jun@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

03-04-24 0114ET