Micron Technology Inc., Boise, Idaho, has opened a new facility that will nearly double the cleanroom space dedicated to research and development, and will support a significant expansion of the company’s overall R&D capabilities. It is the focal point for developing new semiconductor manufacturing processes and designs for the company’s future memory and storage technologies.
Construction of the new cleanroom facility began in October 2015 to create an expanded pristine, precision-controlled environment for development and fabrication of advanced memory integrated circuits. The foundation of the building required 24,000 cubic yards of concrete, the equivalent of a concrete truck delivery every hour for 100 days straight. Ten million pounds of steel were used to house this advanced research center, and the structure contains 240 miles of wire in the building alone, enough to reach the International Space Station.
The Boise R&D fab lies at the heart of Micron’s global network of innovation, and its expansion will help accelerate the development of future generations of DRAM, NAND, and emerging memory technologies.
Once developed in the Boise R&D center, these processes are then transitioned into production-scale manufacturing in Micron’s network of twelve large-scale fabs around the world.
“Creating the world’s most advanced semiconductors is a highly complex process,” says Micron President and CEO, Sanjay Mehrotra. “The work done by our industry-leading team of scientists and engineers here in Idaho will help shape tomorrow’s technologies, products, and solutions.”
According to Technology Development Executive Vice President Scott DeBoer, Micron’s leading-edge DRAM technology (1Ynm) has now transitioned from Boise R&D and into Micron’s production fab in Hiroshima, Japan. Over the past year, the R&D team has also successfully completed the development process in Boise for 64-layer 3D NAND, and moved the technology from initial development in Boise all the way through to volume production in Micron’s Singapore fabs.
In its role as the company’s global technology development center, Boise R&D is leading the development of the next-generation of technologies such as future DRAM, 3D XPoint and 3D NAND.
