While the damage of Wednesday's fire looked grim, it was not as bad as it looked. There were fears the plant would shut for a month or more and push chip prices sharply higher. The factory produces nearly 15 percent of global DRAM semiconductors.
"Operations are likely to resume soon... possibly within two to three weeks or even earlier, but it's still an early estimation, and a clearer picture will emerge by next week," a source said.
Damages are apparently minimal and chip wafer losses quite small, as the fire was mainly in the ventilation area and major production facilities including the clean room were not affected.
Hynix has around 2-3 weeks of DRAM inventory and longer-term global supply is unlikely to be hugely affected if the plant restarted within that time frame and was able to ramp up to full capacity shortly after.