Texas Instruments announces $900 million acquisition of Micron wafer fab-EEWORLD

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Dallas-based chipmaker Texas Instruments said on Wednesday it would buy Micron Technology Inc's Lehi, Utah, plant for $900 million to boost its production capacity, Reuters reported.

Micron had said in March it would sell the facility as it confirmed plans to stop making a certain type of memory chips there.

In fact, this fab has been a problem for Micron for a long time, as it was a byproduct of the Intel/Micron IMFT joint venture. It caused Micron to have many write-downs and losses due to underutilization. This fab is home to 3D X-Point and some NAND operations. Intel currently buys all of their 3D X-Point from this factory.

SemiAnalysis expects Intel to begin production of 4-layer 2nd generation X-Point at its New Mexico fab. Intel recently announced a $3.5B investment in the fab. The $3.5B will be used to modernize the fab, with Intel specifically mentioning advanced packaging technologies such as EMIB and Foveros. We suspect some of this investment will also go into silicon photonics and ramping up 3D X-Point.

TI said it plans to deploy its technology in Lehi, adding that the company will offer workers at that location the opportunity to become its employees.

Micron's shares fell about 2% in after-hours trading, while Texas Instruments' shares were almost flat.

"This investment will continue to strengthen our competitive advantage in manufacturing and technology and is part of our long-term capacity planning," said Rich Templeton, TI chairman, president and CEO.

According to reports, the Lehi fab will be TI's fourth 300mm fab, joining DMOS6, RFAB1 and soon to be completed RFAB2 in TI's fab manufacturing operations. In addition to its value as a 300mm fab, the acquisition is also a strategic move as Lehi will start with 65nm and 45nm production for TI's analog and embedded processing products and be able to go beyond these nodes as needed.

"The Lehi fab is a tremendous asset and an exceptional team. We are excited about the engineering experience and technical skills the team brings to ramping and manufacturing advanced semiconductor processes," said Kyle Flessner, senior vice president of technology and manufacturing at TI.

According to reports, Micron announced in March 2021 that it would sell the Lehi plant and facilities, and the company confirmed plans to terminate the production of 3D XPoint technology and seek new memory solutions for data centers, the latter supported by CXL interconnect. CXL reportedly provides high-performance connections between computing, memory and storage to meet the increased customer workload requirements due to the widespread popularity of artificial intelligence and data analysis.

"Micron's facility in Lehi, Utah, has a long history of technology innovation and leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing," said Sanjay Mehrotra, Micron president and CEO. "We are pleased to reach an agreement with Texas Instruments because it is an industry leader and truly values the talented Lehi team and the ability this site provides to effectively deploy its technology. We are grateful for the Lehi team's contributions to Micron and for Micron's partnership and engagement with the local community."

It is worth mentioning that the economic value of Micron's sale is $1.5 billion, including $900 million in cash from TI and approximately $600 million in value from selected tools and other assets. Micron has already sold some of these assets and will retain the rest to redeploy to other manufacturing bases or sell to other buyers.

Reference address：Texas Instruments announces $900 million acquisition of Micron wafer fab

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