Micron to build 10,000-job ‘mega fab’ in U.S. Will it be in Idaho? 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 memory manufacturer based 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’s future mega-fab will employ about 10,000 people, including engineers, operators and permanent construction workers, Beard said.

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 7,000 people are employed at the Boise campus, Beard said. Many of them are highly educated computer scientists from around the world.

He anticipates that construction of the mega-fab will 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.