The chip industry has once again released a big news!

Micron Technology recently announced that it will invest approximately $200 billion in chip manufacturing and R&D in the United States, including $150 billion in memory manufacturing and $50 billion in R&D investment. This means that Micron Technology's investment scale has increased by $30 billion compared to the previous plan.

It is reported that Micron Technology will build a second leading memory manufacturing plant in Idaho, modernize and expand the Virginia plant, and bring end-to-end high-bandwidth memory (HBM) manufacturing capabilities to the United States to meet artificial intelligence-driven needs.

HBM is widely used in the AI ​​market. Some securities firms said that they continue to be optimistic about the HBM industry chain that benefits from the rapid development of advanced computing chips, as well as the main line of semiconductor cycle recovery represented by storage.

In addition, local time on the 12th, Micron Technology announced that it had sent samples of its 12-layer stacked 36GB HBM4 memory to several major customers. According to reports, Micron HBM4 memory has a 2048-bit interface, and the transfer rate of each memory stack exceeds 2.0TB/s, with a performance improvement of more than 60% over the previous generation of products.

$200 billion major investment

According to recent media reports, Micron Technology ("Micron") announced that the company plans to expand its investment in the United States to approximately $150 billion in memory manufacturing and $50 billion in R&D investment, which is estimated to create 90,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Micron's approximately $200 billion U.S. expansion vision includes two leading large-scale wafer fabs in Idaho, four leading high-capacity wafer fabs in New York, expansion and modernization of existing manufacturing plants in Virginia, advanced HBM packaging capabilities and R&D. These investments are designed to enable Micron to meet expected market demand, maintain market share, and support Micron's goal of producing 40% of DRAM (dynamic random access memory) in the United States.

The two Idaho wafer fabs share the same location with Micron Technology's Idaho R&D operations, which will promote economies of scale and faster time to market for cutting-edge products including HBM.

It is reported that Micron has achieved key construction milestones at its first wafer fab in Idaho, with DRAM production scheduled to begin in 2027. The second wafer fab in Idaho will increase Micron's DRAM production in the United States to meet the growing market demand driven by artificial intelligence, and the company expects to begin ground preparations in New York later this year after completing state and federal environmental review procedures.

Micron expects its second wafer fab in Idaho to come online before the first wafer fab in New York. After the completion of the second wafer fab in Idaho, Micron plans to bring advanced HBM packaging capabilities to the United States. In addition, Micron has finalized a $275 million direct funding award from the Chip Act to support its investment in the expansion and modernization of its Manassas, Virginia plant.

"Micron's plans for memory manufacturing and R&D in the U.S. underscore our commitment to driving innovation and strengthening the domestic semiconductor industry," said Sanjay Mehrotra, Micron Chairman, President and CEO. "This investment of approximately $200 billion will create tens of thousands of American jobs in the semiconductor ecosystem and ensure domestic semiconductor supply."

"Trump has made it clear that it is time to build in America." U.S. Secretary of Commerce Lutnick said: "Micron, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce, announced a $200 billion investment in semiconductor manufacturing and R&D to bring full-scale memory chip production back to the United States. Micron's planned investments will ensure that the United States remains a leader in key industries such as artificial intelligence, automotive, aerospace and defense."

Micron expects that all of its investments in the United States will be eligible for the Advanced Manufacturing Investment Credit (AMIC), and the company has received support at the local, state and federal levels, including up to $6.4 billion in direct CHIP Act funding to support the construction of two wafer fabs in Idaho and two wafer fabs in New York, as well as the expansion and modernization of the Virginia wafer fab.

Several investment banks raise Micron's target price

As one of the leading companies in global storage solutions, Micron Technology's core business covers dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and non-volatile semiconductor storage devices. Its products are widely used in terminal markets such as data centers, personal computers, mobile terminals and automotive electronics. Some analysts pointed out that at present, the three major trends of artificial intelligence, data center construction and increased penetration of smart cars are building long-term growth support for Micron's core business.

Recently, Micron's target price has been raised by several investment banks. On June 5, Mizuho raised Micron's target price from US$124 to US$130, and maintained its "outperform" rating before the company's third-quarter financial report for fiscal year 2025 was released; on the same day, UBS also raised Micron's target price from US$92 to US$120, continued to give a "buy" rating, and pointed out that the reason for the increase was the improvement of the company's prospects and the easing of tariff concerns.

Mizuho predicts that by 2027, global HBM industry revenue will expand at an average annual rate of 55%, and Micron's HBM business revenue growth rate is expected to reach 90% with the increase in market share, eventually accounting for 45% of the company's DRAM product revenue, significantly boosting overall revenue and profit margins.

In addition, after Micron announced a $200 billion investment plan, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang and Apple CEO Tim Cook and others spoke out.

Jensen Huang said, "Micron's investment in advanced memory manufacturing and HBM capabilities in the United States is an important step forward for the AI ​​ecosystem. Micron's leadership in high-performance memory is invaluable to achieving the next generation of AI breakthroughs that NVIDIA is driving. We are pleased to work with Micron to expand the possibilities of AI and high-performance computing."

Tim Cook said, "At Apple, we are proud to work with suppliers in all 50 states, including Micron, whose technology helps power the products that users rely on every day. We look forward to building on our collaboration."

Memory prices continue to rise

According to DRAMexchange data, DDR4 (8GB) prices rose significantly in April this year, from $1.35 in March to $1.65 in April, an increase of 22.2%. NAND Flash (128GB) prices continued the growth trend since the beginning of the year, with a price of $2.788 in April, a 34% increase from the end of last year. After experiencing a significant increase in the previous three months, the price of DDR5 (16GB) slowed down in May, with the price in May being $5.561 and $5.524 in April.

In addition, according to DRAMexchange, last week (June 2-June 6), the spot prices of 18 DRAM categories rose and fell by 0.50% to 17.16% month-on-month, with an average increase and decrease of 8.20%.

According to DIGITIMES, following the news that Samsung and SK Hynix discontinued DDR4, Micron confirmed that it had sent letters to customers to inform them that DDR4 would be discontinued, and it is expected that shipments will be stopped in the next 2 to 3 quarters. Sumit Sadana, executive vice president and chief business officer of Micron, said that the DDR4/LPDDR4 discontinuation notice has been delivered to customers, mainly for PC and data center fields. Sumit Sadana said that DDR4 will continue to be "severely out of stock".

Bocom International believes that the rise in memory prices this year is mainly due to the convergence of production by supply-side manufacturers and the active advance purchase of downstream customers. Considering that these trends are generally difficult to reverse in a short period of time, it is expected that storage prices will continue to rise this year.

Yongxing Securities said that benefiting from the boost in HBM demand from computing chips, the relevant industry chain is expected to usher in accelerated growth. In addition, benefiting from the supply-side driving price increases, inventory gradually returning to normal, and AI driving the increase in HBM, SRAM, and DDR5 demand, the industry chain is expected to bottom out and rebound.