Micron plans to spend up to $100 billion over the next 20-plus years on a chip fab complex in central New York, adding to its earlier plans for expansion for a $15 billion fab at its Boise, Idaho, headquarters.
The memory company is the latest to take advantage of the CHIPS Act, which provides $52 billion in grants and subsidies for construction of fabs in the US, although the exact subsidy to Micron is not yet known. Micron also expects to take advantage of federal investment tax credits over the project's lifetime.
Seven companies, including Micron, have already committed more than $100 billion in new chip fabs in coming years across the US.
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The factory will be built in Clay, New York, 15 miles north of Syracuse, with site preparation starting next year and production of chips in volume starting after 2025. The memory company expects to spend $20 billion through 2029 in a first phase, with $100 billion over the next 20 years or so.
Four separate fabs will be built in phases on a 1,300 acre site, Micron said. Ultimately, there could be four 600,000 square foot cleanroooms, the size of 40 football fields.
New York state has created an incentive package of $5.5 billion, which the state sees as an investment in job creation. Micron projects nearly 50,000 jobs in the upstate area over 20-plus years with 9,000 Micron employees and more than 40,000 jobs for construction and supply companies. Micron and the state will spend $500 million on community work force training.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul and other officials formally announced the Micron plans online from an auditorium at Syracuse University.
Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra credited the CHIPS Act and investment tax credits for boosting the company’s plans to build in New York A major sponsor of the act was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York who called the move by Micron to New York the state's "Erie Canal moment" because of the transformation the canal made to the state centuries ago.
Mehrotra said the New York fab megasite will be central to helping the US produce 10% of memory chips globally, up from 2% made now.
Like many tech companies, Micron has felt the impact of global macroeconomic problems, including supply chain shortages and inflation, and last week reported a 20% decline in revenues in the fourth quarter compared to a year earlier.
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