Second largest DRAM manufacturer in the world receives 6.2 billion US dollars
Micron is bringing its memory production back to the USA. The government is providing billions in subsidies for this.
(Image: Micron)
In April 2024, it was still a provisional declaration of intent, but now it's a done deal: memory manufacturer Micron will receive 6.165 billion US dollars as part of the US Chips Act, which will go towards the construction of several US semiconductor plants for DRAM chips. DRAM components are used in memory chips, graphics cards and AI accelerators, among other things.
With a global market share of around 20 percent, Micron is the third-largest DRAM manufacturer after its South Korean competitors Samsung and SK Hynix – followed at a distance by only small companies. Although Micron has its headquarters in the USA, the company currently produces almost all of its memory in Asia.
Initially three semiconductor plants for 50 billion
In Boise, Idaho, Micron operates a modern development center with comparatively small production facilities. In Manassas, Virginia, components with coarser exposure technology are produced. The modern semiconductor plant in Lehi, Utah, which was originally built together with Intel for the production of the phase-change memory 3D-Xpoint (Optane), has been owned by Texas Instruments (TI) since 2021.
Micron plans to expand its development center in Boise with a large semiconductor plant and to build two plants in the US state of New York. The projects will cost Micron around 50 billion US dollars by 2030. This includes the almost 6.2 billion US dollars in direct subsidies that the US Department of Commerce has now finally released. In addition, considerable tax breaks are in the offing – Micron is talking about up to 5.5 billion US dollars over the entire lifetime of the project from the state of New York alone. Even further into the future, investments are expected to rise to a total of 125 billion US dollars.
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Construction originally began in 2022, with series production scheduled to start gradually at the various sites between the end of 2026 and 2029.
According to the Department of Commerce, less than two percent of the world's modern DRAM chips ("Advanced DRAM") are currently produced in the USA. The government wants to increase this proportion to ten percent by 2035. This also involves complex high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI accelerators.
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