Hynix on Tuesday was slapped with a 57.37% import tariffs on chips to the US for receiving illegal funding from the Korean government. The preliminary ruling by the US Commerce Department has prompted Hynix to seek ways to minimize the impact of the tariff.

Besides possible cooperation in Taiwan, EBN on Wednesday quoted Farhad Tabrizi, vice president of worldwide memory marketing for Hynix, as saying that the company was planning to "drop-ship" DRAM made in Korea to US customer plants in the Asia-Pacific and other areas outside the US that are not affected by the tariff.

Hynix ships 20% of its total DRAM volume to the US, of which the Eugene fab contributes 15%, Dow Jones reported. The Korean DRAM maker is currently also facing a possible decision by the European Union (EU) to impose tariffs of up to 35% on its memory chip exports to Europe.