South Korea's second-largest memory chip manufacturer SK Hynix announced on Wednesday that it has deployed advanced production equipment at a memory production line in South Korea to accelerate the development of next-generation chips.

The company stated that it has installed the industry's first High Numerical Aperture Extreme Ultraviolet (High NA EUV) lithography system at its M16 chip manufacturing facility, a major production base located in Icheon, south of Seoul.

High NA EUV refers to an advanced lithography system that delivers superior resolution by applying a larger numerical aperture, which measures an optical system's ability to collect light.

The equipment is manufactured by Netherlands-based ASML Holding NV, which reports that the device offers a 40% improvement in numerical aperture and 1.7 times better precision.

SK Hynix indicated that this system will accelerate the development of next-generation memory products.

"We expect that the addition of critical infrastructure will transform the technological vision we have been pursuing into reality," said Cha Seon-yong, SK Hynix's head of research and development.

He added: "Our goal is to strengthen our leading position in the AI memory sector by leveraging cutting-edge technologies required for the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI) and next-generation computing markets."