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Comment by petcat

2 months ago

??? Micron has DRAM megafabs in both Idaho and New York state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micron_Technology

They don't "have them", they're building them.

https://www.micron.com/us-expansion/id

> Micron has already achieved key construction milestones on its first Idaho fab with DRAM output scheduled to begin in 2027.

https://investors.micron.com/news-releases/news-release-deta...

> Production is expected to start in 2030 with the fabs ramping throughout the decade.

Until they start outputting DRAM in any meaningful quantity, they're not relevant.

  • > They don't "have them", they're building them.

    According to wikipedia Micron Fab 6 in Virginia started production in 1997 and is still operating

    • > "in any meaningful capacity"

      Building a factory is one thing, they can have 50 of them built, but that doesn't mean much if all 50 together amount to like 0.1% of the company's output.

      Once those factories scale up to 1-2%, then we can start considering that they've actually built a domestic supply, but that's a whole different goal than simply building the factories. Building factories is trivial. Making them output something is also "trivial". Scaling that up to a meaningful amount is a whole different, much harder goal to accomplish.

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  • It looks like it's still a big difference between how the US and EU are responding to the chip supply wars. The US is actually building their own manufacturing capabilities domestically while the EU is apparently doing nothing, which is unfortunate.

> Currently, 100% of leading-edge DRAM production occurs overseas, primarily in East Asia.[0]

They make DRAM for cars, not computers, in the USA. They've promised they'll bring manufacturing onshore any time soon, which effectively means they'll wait until Trump forgets about it.

0: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2025/06/president-trum...

  • That's not how it works, DRAM substrate (the actual chip that contains memory cells) is shared. It's only the packaging that differs.

Are those plants still functional after CHIPS act was axed? I thought they mainly produce in Asia now.

  • Well first of all, the CHIPS Act was not "axed", it is federal law passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of the House and Senate. It would take a complete reversal of congress to repeal it and it's still very popular among both parties.

    Where do you get your information from?

    • > Well first of all, the CHIPS Act was not "axed", it is federal law passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of the House and Senate. It would take a complete reversal of congress to repeal it and it's still very popular among both parties.

      DOGE cut basically all staff from the CHIPS Program Office, congress passed the money but Trump is choosing to turn it into a slush-fund the admin spends on industrial policy (such as buying a stake in Intel). Wolfspeed went into bankruptcy in part because the admin delayed CHIPS funding agreed by the previous admin [1] (it's unclear whether they received the grant now that they have left it).

      [1] https://www.ft.com/content/4aac09f9-19df-401a-9ab3-ef14a47bb...

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  • > after CHIPS act was axed

    This is news to a lot of Americans! The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act is codified federal law. I think a lot of states (Arizona, Idaho, New York) would be very interested to learn that the funding for the infrastructure that they are already building has somehow gone poof.

    • Intel is now partially government owned(10%), they got rid of some of the milestones. The current administration has been extremely poor about communicating changes as well as constantly yanking funding (or threatening to) for projects - the chances of funding going poof are higher than ever.