Micron to build ‘mega fab’ in US. Will it be in Idaho? Here’s what the company says
When Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act, authorizing subsidies for the semiconductor industry, it raised a big question for one of Boise’s largest employers.
Will the subsidies entice Micron Technology Inc. to expand near its headquarters in Idaho? Or will it go elsewhere in the U.S., perhaps to the Texas capitol’s booming tech hub?
Rob Beard, senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at Micron, told the Idaho Statesman on a Zoom call Friday that the memory-making company was considering locations in several states across the country, not just Idaho.
“What we would like to build in the United States is a massive manufacturing facility,” Beard said. “So big, we call it a mega-fab.”
Fab is short for semiconductor fabrication, the manufacturing plants where DRAM, dynamic random-access memory, and NAND flash memory are produced. Micron is the only DRAM manufacturer in the U.S. The country gets most of its chips from Taiwan.
The legislation approved by Congress authorized about $52 billion to induce computer chip manufacturers to build fabs, according to The Washington Post.
Micron says its mega-fab will employ 3,000 to 5,000 people, including engineers, operators and permanent construction workers. Non-Micron jobs created as a result of the fab would bring the total to about 10,000, the company says.
If the company were to construct the plant in Idaho, it would represent a return of sorts to the days Micron manufactured chips on its Boise campus. Micron ended manufacturing in Boise in 2009 and increased production at other fabs, mostly abroad.
The company has chip manufacturing plants in Virginia, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan, according to previous reporting by the Statesman. It sold its fab in Lehi, Utah, to Texas Instruments in 2021.
“Micron was founded in Boise in 1978,” he said. “It was our first manufacturing campus.”
At its home base in the Treasure Valley, Micron now operates what the company calls a “pilot line” for research and development. The process technology is developed in Boise, with the chips manufactured elsewhere.
Still, about 6,000 people are employed in the Treasure Valley, Micron said. Many of them are highly educated scientists and engineers from around the world.
”I anticipate that we would start constructing sometime within the next year,” Beard said. “And again, it will depend on how long it takes the (U.S.) Department of Commerce to set up the program.”
Micron later clarified that it expects to see U.S. fab construction, but not necessarily its own, begin within the next year.
Beard said he also expects other memory makers to start building their own fabs in the same time frame with the subsidies available in the CHIPS and Science Act.
As Congress passed the legislation, electronics conglomerate Samsung filed paperwork suggesting it has plans to build 11 new fabs in Texas, according to The Texas Tribune.
Idaho governor, Boise mayor won’t comment
It’s unclear whether the city of Boise or the governor’s office in Idaho is encouraging Micron to expand in the local economy.
Emily Callihan, communications director for Idaho Gov. Brad Little, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Maria Weeg, director of community engagement for the city of Boise, also did not respond to inquiries from the Statesman.
Boise Mayor Lauren McLean wrote in a guest opinion published July 18 by the Statesman that she stands with Micron and supports the investments in the semiconductor industry.
“It means making more of the products we rely on in America, including right here in Boise,” McLean said.
Some worry a new fab, and the influx of workers it could bring, would exacerbate the housing crisis in the Boise area. The city made headlines earlier this year when its housing market was ranked as the most unaffordable in the country, the Statesman reported in January.
This story was originally published August 2, 2022 at 8:38 AM.
CORRECTION: After this story was published, Micron said that the 10,000 jobs it estimates its new fab would create include non-Micron workers in jobs created indirectly by the fab. Micron also said it expects the semiconductor industry to begin U.S. fab construction within the next year thanks to the new federal subsidies, but not necessarily Micron’s own fab. Also, Micron told the Statesman on Sept. 6, 2022, that it employs more than 6,000 people in the Treasure Valley, not the nearly 7,000 that a Micron executive had told the Statesman in early August. This story has been revised to reflect that correction.
