Bottom line: Micron is on track to receive a significant injection of funding from the US government to help cover the cost of various domestic factory projects. The grants, said to total more than $6 billion, will reportedly come from the Commerce Department.
Sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that the deal is not yet finalized but could be wrapped up and announced as soon as next week. Based on the language used in the article, it does not sound as if the money is coming from the Chips and Science Act fund.
Micron is based in Boise, Idaho, and is currently building new factories in its home state as well as in New York. The NY megafab is expected to play a key role in Micron’s strategy to raise American made, cutting-edge DRAM production to 40 percent of its global capacity over the next decade.
The project was announced in late 2022 and will be the largest semiconductor fab in the country once complete, and also represents the largest private investment in the history of the state of New York.
Micron at the time said it will invest up to $100 billion into the project over the next two decades and plans to inject the first $20 billion by the end of the 2020s. In that light, the $6 billion in funding from the government is just a drop in the bucket.
The Chips and Science Act allocates $39 billion in subsidies specifically intended to support chip manufacturing within the US. A handful of awards have already been doled out by the government with recipients including Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., and Samsung.
Intel will receive up to $8.5 billion in direct funding plus up to an additional $11 billion in low-interest loans and a 25 percent investment tax credit on up to $100 billion of capital investments. TSMC is on track to rake in $11.6 billion in funding for a third plant in Arizona, and Samsung is getting $6.4 billion.
