The U.S. Department of Commerce awarded Micron Technology up to $6.165 billion in direct funding under the CHIPS Incentives Program’s Funding Opportunity for Commercial Fabrication Facilities.
Micron expects the funding to support its two-decade plan to invest approximately $100 billion in New York and $25 billion in Idaho, which will create approximately 20,000 jobs. The projects would also increase the U.S.’s share of advanced memory manufacturing from less than 2% today to approximately 10% by 2035.
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According to the commerce department, the investment will help strengthen U.S. economic resiliency by boosting a domestic supply of DRAM chips essential for advanced technologies, including personal computing, industrial, high-performance compute, automotive, industrial, wireless communications and artificial intelligence.
Micron’s DRAM chips also power the company’s performance memory, known as High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM), which is critical for enabling new AI models. With this funding, Micron plans to expand the development and production of the most advanced memory semiconductor technology in New York and Idaho and is committing to spend approximately $50 billion before the end of the decade.
The commerce department plans to disburse the funds based on Micron’s completion of project milestones.
The Biden-Harris Administration also announced that the Department of Commerce signed a non-binding Preliminary Memorandum of Terms with Micron Technology for up to $275 million in proposed funding to expand and modernize its facility in Manassas, Virginia. The expected capital expenditure for the modernization will be $2 billion over the next several years.
The proposed project would onshore Micron’s 1-alpha technology to its Manassas facility, increasing monthly wafer output. Micron’s 1-alpha node, an advanced DRAM process technology, offers improvements in bit density, power efficiency and performance capability. Supporting a stable supply of Micron’s 1-alpha technology would advance U.S. supply chain resiliency because the legacy DRAM memory chips that would be made in Virginia are important components for the automotive and industrial markets.
Micron expects the proposed project in Manassas to create over 400 manufacturing jobs and up to 2700 community jobs at the peak of the project.
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