Micron's (Idaho) expansion doesn't include Lehi (Utah)
| September 10, 2005 |  View for printing |
Status quo: The Utah County complex sits mostly unused as the plant in Singapore grows
Micron Technology Inc. has kept its huge Utah County memory chip plant all but mothballed for nearly a decade, blaming a weak market for waylaying its original, $1.7 billion plans.
Yet on Friday, the Boise-based company was busy celebrating the $250 million, 265,000-square-foot expansion of its chip-making facilities in Singapore.
To borrow from the Realtor's handbook: It's all about location, location, location.
Micron has kept the Lehi facility in a holding pattern ever since cutting back its Utah hiring plans with the chip market slide of the late 1990s. Only significant improvements in the domestic chip market, the company has maintained, can resurrect the Lehi plant's once-golden future.
But it is the overseas market for DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) chips, particularly in Asia and among Pacific Rim companies, that is growing, Micron officials said Friday.
"We need operations in close proximity to our customers, and the Singapore operation is perfectly located to help us achieve this goal," Micron spokesman Mike Reynoldson said. "This expansion will support Micron's assembly and test needs in Asia for the next four to five years."
By Bob Mims The Salt Lake Tribune
Full Story: http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_3016147 
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