As soon as the decision is published in the Federal Record this week, Hynix must begin posting a bond or make deposits for the extra 57.37% tariff on all subsequent DRAM imports into the U.S. Analysts noted this effectively closes down further Hynix DRAM exports to this country.

Samsung Electronics Co., also part of the countervailing duty case, was assessed only 0.16% duty, which is considered de minimus and will be waived.

Hynix, however, said production of its DRAM fab in Eugene, Ore. is not affected by the Commerce ruling and the firm can continue to deliver DRAMs to U.S. customers from this facility. Farhad Tabrizi, Hynix vice president of worldwide memory marketing, said the Eugene fab is running at full capacity of 32,000 wafer starts a month, producing 256Mbit SDRAMs and DDR devices.

"We also brought enough inventory of 64Mbit and 128Mbit DRAMs into the U.S. before the Commerce ruling to be able to meet customer demand forecasts for these products," he added. "We will also drop-ship semiconductors made in Korea to U.S. customer plants in the Asia-Pacific region and other parts of the world outside this country, which aren't affected by the Commerce decision."

Fabrizi estimated that 80% of Hynix DRAM exports to U.S. customers would escape the penalty duties by being drop-shipped to plants outside the country. He said the rest of Hynix DRAM sales in the U.S. could be shipped from the Eugene fab.

The U.S. decision comes only a week after the European Commission notified member countries of the European Union that it would recommend a countervailing duty of up to 35% on imported Hynix chips for the same illegal Korean government subsidies. A full EC preliminary ruling on the penalty tariff is expected later this month.

Hynix' Tabrizi said the Korean chipmaker would drop-ship DRAMs and chips to plants of European customers located in other parts of the world to escape the countervailing duties.

The U.S. case against Hynix was brought last November by Micron Technology Inc., alleging that the Korean chip firm received $11.7 billion in illegal Korean government-sanctioned subsidies as part of three different bailouts in the period January 2001 to June 2002.

The U.S. International Trade Commission, which shares jurisdiction in the case with Commerce, ruled in December that the American DRAM industry has been injured by the improper government subsidies to Hynix.

The Commerce Department is expected to make a final ruling in June on the Hynix countervailing duty, and the ITC makes its final decision a month later on whether the U.S. industry has been injured.