Micron Technology Eyes 450mm with New R&D Center
By Mark LaPedus and David Lammers
Despite a loss for the quarter, Micron Technology Inc. continues to boost its R&D efforts. The memory maker is expanding its R&D center in Boise, Ida., with plans to make the facility ”450mm-compatible,” said Steve Appleton, chief executive of Micron, on Thursday (Sept. 29).
Micron also continues to ramp up its 300-mm fab in Singapore, which is making 25nm NAND flash parts. The company is also ramping up a 20nm NAND flash line in the Utah. Both plants are joint fab ventures with Intel.
For some time, Micron has operated a 300-mm R&D center in Boise. The new, expended R&D center, which is called the Advanced Materials Characterization Laboratory, will now include 50,000 square feet of additional cleanroom space, according to a spokesman for Micron.
In a conference call to discuss its financial results on Thursday, Appleton said the R&D center will be up and running in the beginning of 2012. The new R&D cleanroom will initially accommodate 300-mm tools. The center is also designed to be “450mm-compatible,” Appleton told analysts, but Micron’s major “focus is still 300mm technology.”
The center can handle 450mm tools-if or when the gear is ready. The Micron spokesman said the memory maker is “investigating (450mm), but we don’t have any near term plans for it.”
Also in the new R&D center, Micron is exploring next-generation memory types, including phase-change, and will also devise new tool technologies like extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, the spokesman said.
The company is not part of the Global 450 Consortium, or G450C. The G450C announced this week includes five IC manufacturers, with IBM and GlobalFoundries joining the original “IST” members, Intel, Samsung, and TSMC.
Also on Thursday, Micron announced results of operations for its fourth quarter and 2011 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 1, 2011. For fiscal 2011, the company invested approximately $2.9 billion in capital spending. In fiscal 2012, Micron’s capital spending is expected to be just over $2 billion, according to the company.
For the fourth quarter, the company had a net loss attributable to Micron shareholders of $135 million, or minus $0.14 per diluted share, on net sales of $2.1 billion. For the fourth quarter a year ago, the company had a profit of $342 million, or $0.32 per diluted share, on net sales of $2.5 billion.
The DRAM market “is pretty weak,” Appleton said. But there is “a little better environment” in the NAND market.
Micron is ramping up 25nm NAND flash in IM Flash Singapore, a 300mm joint fab venture between Micron and Intel. By year’s end, the fab will produce 60,000 wafers a month.
In April, Intel and Micron expanded their NAND flash memory joint venture operations with the official opening of IM Flash Singapore. The $3 billion facility is expected to employ about 1,200 and is currently ramping production of the companies’ 25nm NAND flash memory. IM Flash has ramped production of 25nm NAND flash memory at the Singapore facility since mid-2010. The facility is expected to be at full production levels later in 2011.
Micron is also ramping up a 20nm NAND flash line in IM Flash Technologies LCC, a joint fab venture between Intel and Micron in Utah. In April, Intel and Micron introduced a new, finer 20nm process technology for manufacturing NAND flash memory. Manufactured by IM Flash in Utah, a new 20nm 8GB device was rolled out by Intel and Micron. The production ramp for the 20nm line “continues to go well,” Appleton said.
Also in April, rival Toshiba announced that it has fabricated NAND flash memories with 19nm process technology, the finest level yet achieved. This technology advance has already been applied to 2-bit-per-cell 64-gigabit (Gbit) chips that are the world’s smallest and offer the highest density on a single chip. Toshiba will also add 3-bit-per-cell products fabricated with the 19nm process technology to its product line-up.
At Micron, meanwhile, the company’s consolidated gross margin declined to 15 percent for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 from 22 percent for the third quarter of fiscal 2011 due primarily to significant declines in DRAM average selling prices.
Revenue from sales of NAND flash products was 11 percent higher in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2011 due to a 40 percent increase in sales volume partially offset by a decrease in average selling prices. Revenue from sales of DRAM products was 12 percent lower in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2011 due to the declines in average selling prices partially offset by an increase in sales volume.
Sales of NOR Flash products were approximately 17 percent of total net sales for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011. “DRAM pricing (was) worse than expected” for Micron in the quarter, said C.J. Muse, an analyst with Barclays Capital in a report. “On (a) positive note, we expect NAND to grow from 40 percent of (the) mix to ~50 percent in the next 12 months” for Micron.
For the 2011 fiscal year, the company had net income attributable to Micron shareholders of $167 million, or $0.17 per diluted share, on net sales of $8.8 billion. The results for fiscal 2011 compare to net income of $1.85 billion, or $1.85 per diluted share, on net sales of $8.5 billion for the 2010 fiscal year.
