Micron Technology Inc, the world’s third-largest memorychip maker, yesterday launched a new advanced chip assembly and testing plant in Taichung, paving the way for volume production of its high-bandwidth-memory HBM3E chips early next year to satisfy growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices.
The Boise, Idaho-based company said the new facility, dubbed Advanced Assembly and Test Taiwan (AATT), integrates advanced probe, 3D packaging and testing capabilities to enable production of HBM3E and other products used in AI devices, data centers, and edge computing and cloud applications.
The new facility currently assembles and tests Micron’s one-beta DRAM manufactured at its Japanese fab in Hiroshima, the company said.
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Micron said it is seeing strong interest and enthusiasm for the HBM3E chips, which enable faster AI algorithms by providing “higher memory capacity that improves performance and reduces CPU offload for faster training and more responsive queries.”
AI applications provide a tremendous opportunity for new efficiency and transformation experiences, Micron Technology president and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said at the opening ceremony for the AATT facility in Taichung. The company has unveiled products that unleash the power of AI from cloud to edge applications, he said.
Taiwan is the only manufacturing location that has vertical integration — from silicon manufacturing, assembly and testing to logistics — across Micron’s facilities, the company said.
“The opening of our new Advanced Assembly and Test facility is a reflection of Micron’s technology leadership, operational excellence and deep, long-term commitment to meeting the needs of our global customer base,” Mehrotra said.
“We are dedicated to Taiwan’s growth, and our investment in local operations will create hundreds of new Micron jobs, and thousands more for the surrounding community over the next ten years, allowing us to help create a lasting positive social impact,” he said.
Micron also operates assembly and test facilities in China, Malaysia and Singapore, the company said.
The opening of the new facility proves that Micron has recognized Taiwan as a reliable and secure investment destination, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said at the opening ceremony yesterday.
Working with reliable partners and securing a resilient supply chain are now more important than ever, as no country and no industry can avoid the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Tsai said.
Micron yesterday also reiterated that it is on schedule to ramp up production of its next-generation one-gamma chips, which would enter volume production in the first half of 2025 at its A3 fab in Taichung. Micron Taiwan installed extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) tools, a key equipment to manufacture one-gamma chips, last year, before Micron Japan did so.
The company will explore the feasibility of arranging new job recruitments when its factories return to full utilization, said Donghui Lu (盧東暉), corporate vice president of front-end manufacturing and head of Micron Taiwan. Micron has suspended global headcount cuts, he said.
Micron said last week that prices of memory chips have bottomed and are expected to rebound next year.
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