SK hynix (000660.KS) has selected and honored outstanding inventions with high technical achievement and patent value from research it conducted jointly with universities.
The company said it held the "2026 Industry-Academia Research Project Outstanding Invention Awards" at its Icheon campus in Gyeonggi Province on the 16th, choosing a total of five inventions — one grand prize, one excellence award and three honorable mentions — from 26 industry-academia patents filed last year. The event has been held annually since 2013 to identify results from joint industry-academia research.
The grand prize went to a patent related to "next-generation multi-level signal transmission circuit design" by Choi Woo-suk, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University. Choi's research team developed a communication circuit that transmits data quickly and with less energy between computing chips and memory, while reducing power supply noise that arises during high-speed operation.
As the volume of data moving between artificial intelligence computing chips and memory surges, how fast and reliably that data can be delivered is emerging as a key technology determining semiconductor performance. Choi's team developed a circuit that reduces the problem of voltage fluctuations destabilizing signals when data moves at high speed. Experiments confirmed that the approach transmits data more stably than existing methods, and the team filed the patent jointly with SK hynix.
The excellence award was given to a patent on electrode materials and device characteristics for next-generation memory by Kim Hyung-joon, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Yonsei University. The technology controls the characteristics of electrodes and devices simply by adjusting process conditions, and was recognized for a level of completeness that can be applied to actual product development.
Honorable mentions went to Hwang Cheol-seong, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Seoul National University; Choi Byung-joon, a professor at Seoul National University of Science and Technology; and Han Jae-duk, a professor at Hanyang University. Hwang and Choi were recognized for process technology that deposits key materials for next-generation memory more precisely, while Han was recognized for circuit technology that allows faster data exchange between storage devices and computing chips.
"We expect that outstanding patents identified through industry-academia cooperation will contribute to strengthening the technological competitiveness of Korea's semiconductor industry," said Cha Sun-yong, head of SK hynix's Future Technology Research Institute. "We will continue to provide active support so that challenging and innovative research can flourish."
