Lam Research wants PSK's bevel etchers destroyed, and Seoul rules next month

Nine minutes of revenue, or a product line

At its sixth hearing on 17 September, the Seoul Central District Court closed arguments in Lam Research's 2021 patent suit↗ against the Korean equipment maker PSK and said it will rule in October ¹. Lam alleges the PRECIA bevel etcher infringes Korean patent 1249247↗, and it asks for two things: 600 million won in damages, and the destruction of PSK's equipment ¹. The money converts to about $438,000 at a rate near 1,371 won to the dollar ². Lam booked $6.72 billion of revenue in the quarter ended 28 June ³, which makes the damages ask roughly nine minutes of its own sales.

One seller or two, inside an HBM boom

A bevel etcher strips the unstable metal and nonmetal films that collect at a wafer's edge; leave them, the patent's own specification says, and they seriously damage the chips being made ¹⁷. PSK localized the tool and supplies SK hynix; before it arrived, Lam held the market alone, according to The Elec↗, the only newsroom following the hearings ¹.

That is why a chamber-parts dispute reaches the AI trade. SK hynix has committed about 54 trillion won, near $38.1 billion, to two new Korean fabs for HBM and DRAM ⁴, holds 58 percent of global HBM revenue ⁵, and its chief executive sees the memory shortage holding into 2030 ⁵. Grant the destruction demand, and Korea's memory giants lose their only domestic maker of wafer-edge machines.

Ring or panel, fought over one drawing

The verdict turns on a consumable chamber part. Lam's patent covers a ring-shaped gas diffuser with an open center; PSK insists its part is a closed-center panel ¹.

At the hearing, PSK handed over drawings with the first decimal of every dimension masked; Lam counted four labels reading GDR rather than GDP and called the one-time-typo defense hard to accept. PSK's rebuttal: a search of its own parts system returns a stack of GDP entries and not one GDR ¹. Samsung Electronics sits in the same file; the masked figures, PSK says, are the process-edge-strip specs it requested, with each panel's radius cut to match ¹.

Twelve suits, one strategy

The case is one front in a campaign. Lam has filed 12 patent suits against Korean suppliers since 2020, and its Korean patent registrations climbed from 68 in 2020 to 344 in 2025, per lawmaker data↗ reported by the Chosun Ilbo ⁶. Two patents tied to the PSK fight have already been invalidated at the tribunal; Lam's position is that validity and infringement are separate questions ⁶. The industry's read is blunter: verdicts are optional when the point is years of delay ⁶.

A patent with weeks to live

The patent itself is running out of road. It was filed in December 2006 by a Korean engineering firm, granted in 2013, and Lam enforces it under exclusive rights ¹⁷; the register logs the January 2022 invalidation challenge that followed the suit ⁷. It stands active, expiring 21 December 2026 ⁷. October's ruling arrives with weeks of enforceable life left in the very right being contested.

What October decides

The court turned down Lam's demand for PSK's tax records and said it may reopen arguments after reviewing the file ¹. PSK, which reported 457.2 billion won of CY2025 revenue, about $334 million↗, is chasing $1 billion in sales by 2030 ⁸².

October settles something simpler than the money: whether SK hynix and Samsung keep a domestic second source for wafer-edge processing, or buy it from the plaintiff alone.

The 600 million won is noise. The demolition demand is the signal.