Dive Brief:
- Micron Technology will receive $6.14 billion in CHIPS and Science Act funding, the White House announced on Thursday.
- A portion of the funds will go towards constructing two Clay, New York, fabrication facilities focused on making memory chips, creating roughly 13,500 facility and construction jobs.
- Some of the money will also help build a $25 billion memory chip fab in Boise, Idaho, located next to Micron’s research and development facilities, creating approximately 6,500 facility and construction jobs.
Dive Insight:
The two fabs in New York are the first step in Micron’s vision to invest approximately $100 billion in the state over the next two decades. The company plans to establish four total fabs in New York, each with 600,000 square feet of cleanrooms, the largest amount ever announced in the country, according to Micron.
Construction of the first fab is expected to begin in 2025 and production will come online in 2028, ramping up with market demand over the next decade.
The Idaho fab is expected to be operational in 2025, with DRAM production starting in 2026 and ramping in line with market demand over the second half of the decade, the company stated.
Both investments are expected to onshore approximately 40% of Micron’s dynamic random-access memory chip production over the next two decades. The New York project is slated to create over 9,000 manufacturing and facility jobs, while the Idaho project is expected to create over 2,000 jobs.
“With this proposed investment, we are working to deliver on one of the core objectives of President Biden’s CHIPS program – onshoring the development and production of the most advanced memory semiconductor technology which is crucial for safeguarding our leadership on artificial intelligence and protecting our economic and national security,” Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a statement.
The CHIPS funds dedicate $40 million to workforce funding. Micron has also launched its first registered apprenticeship program in Idaho in partnership with the College of Western Idaho and the Idaho Manufacturing Alliance, which currently supports 21 apprentices with plans to scale. The semiconductor company is planning the same program for New York.
Micron is also pushing child care support at both sites — it plans to open a 124-seat child care center near the Boise facilities, opening in September, and is in the early stages of planning a similar project in New York.
At the state level, New York committed $5.5 billion for Micron’s project in Clay and Idaho will provide an incentive package that includes reduced state taxes and substantial investments in workforce training programs.
The company plans to claim the federal Investment Tax Credit, which is expected to be up to 25% of qualified capital expenditures, according to Micron.
In addition to the Idaho and New York projects, Micron submitted an application to the Department of Commerce to modernize its Manassas, Virginia, fab to support customer demand in areas such as automotive, industrial, aerospace and defense.
