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United States Technology

Micron To Invest $15 Billion in New US Manufacturing Unit (reuters.com) 19

Micron will invest about $15 billion over the next 10 years in a new memory-chip manufacturing facility in Boise, Idaho, where it is based, the company said on Thursday. From a report: The investment takes into account anticipated federal grants and credits under the CHIPS and Science Act and will create 17,000 jobs by the end of the decade. President Joe Biden last month signed a bill to provide $52.7 billion in subsidies for semiconductor production and research and to boost efforts to make the United States more competitive. "Today's announcement by Micron is another big win for America," Biden said in a statement. "We will make EVs, chips, fiber optics and other critical components here in America and we will have an economy built from the bottom up and middle out." Micron did not provide details of the new facility's capacity or the kind of chips it will produce. The expansion comes at a time when Micron has cut its fourth-quarter revenue forecast due to weak demand. Peer Seagate too has slashed its first-quarter expectations.
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Micron To Invest $15 Billion in New US Manufacturing Unit

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  • Does and/or will the US have enough skilled technicians to run all these new foundries? Very questionable. I asked the magic 8-ball, and it says all indications point to no.

    • by crow ( 16139 )

      Disagree.

      Most of these jobs require skills that have to be taught by the employer. They just need intelligent employees willing to learn and do the job. Micron will have no problem finding people in Boise, and I expect the same will be true of all the other new factories announced in the past few weeks.

      • by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

        They just need intelligent employees willing to learn and do the job.

        see there is the problem, our main electronics assembly plants in the United States has to place one point lessons in the bathroom to remind people to flush the toilet

        • one point lessons in the bathroom to remind people to flush the toilet

          The solution is automatic urinal sensors to trigger the flush.

          The solution to running the semiconductor fab is the same: automation.

          • by tragedy ( 27079 )

            This is gross, but I feel that I should point out that only works if everything is in the bowl. Visiting public restrooms often does make me despair for the future and/or current state of humanity.

            • Urinal sensors don't detect urine. They use ultrasound to detect the presence or absence of a human standing in front of the urinal.

              If you stand in front of a urinal sensor, and then step away, it will flush whether you peed or not.

              • by tragedy ( 27079 )

                I wasn't saying that the sensors detect what's in the bowl. I was saying that a disturbing number of people don't seem either capable of keeping it in the bowl or don't care so flushing, automatic or not, does not help. I was also generalizing to toilets in general and more than just urine. I have absolutely no idea how anyone could accomplish some of the things I've seen in public restrooms by accident. Frankly, it's hard to understand how they could have been accomplished on purpose.

        • by Pascoea ( 968200 )
          I work with a ton of super intelligent people, yet some still haven't figured out how to flush the toilet. It's not that they are dumb, it's just that people are lazy and disgusting.
          • by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

            yea there was 2 requirements, intelligent and not lazy

            • by Pascoea ( 968200 )
              "Not lazy" wasn't listed as a requirement! All you asked for was intelligent. You just disqualified me. I am absolutely lazy, given the chance I will find any way possible to make a job easier and take less time.
    • So, you're asking... what? If these factories will truck in workers from India? That they'll just build the factories and hope for the best, when it comes to getting the workers the place will need?

    • Re:Manned by whom? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by UMichEE ( 9815976 ) on Thursday September 01, 2022 @12:57PM (#62843909)

      I think you have two misconceptions. The first is that fabs employ a lot of people and the second is that everyone who works at a fab is an engineer or highly specialized technician. Both of these are false.

      Modern fabs are an almost unbelievable feat of automation. It's not that companies want to save on headcount, it's that including people in the process leads to expensive mistakes and potential contamination. I visited fabs a few times at my previous employer and was shocked that there were only 2 other people in the 5 acre clean room. One was running some tests and another was a contractor repairing a broken machine.

      Fabs have a small number of engineers who usually supervise a larger number of technicians. Think of the relationship here as being similar to pharmacists and pharmacy techs. We might have a shortage of pharmacists, but it takes only a month for a high-school graduate to become a pharmacy tech. Micron will probably be able to find 50-100 engineers for their $15B facility and probably won't struggle to find 200-400 people who graduated high school to work as techs.

    • You train them? And how else are we going to have the means to train domestic workers without the foundries for them to work in?

      This actually makes a better case to build these foundries, to build up domestic knowledge and skill base.

    • They'll have to draw people there. Check out Boise's recent population growth already. [reaproject.org] It's crazy.
  • when I see it. Intel's massive, economy-changing investment in Ohio was announced with great fanfare and then quickly put on ice. Maybe it will go through, maybe it won't. I really want to believe these sorts of things, but companies make lots of plans that don't actually happen.
  • All of the chip manufacturing will do no good unless there is an entire industry to support full manufacturing to end products.
  • I guess people are finally catching on that maybe we shouldn’t source the majority of our chips that are critical to many of the products we buy and use on a daily basis to countries that are either controlled by or under threat of invasion by communist authoritarian regimes.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell

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